EFL Teachers’ Writing Assessment Literacy, Beliefs, and Training Needs in the Context of Turkey

Mohammadreza Valizadeh

Abstract


Teachers’ assessment literacy and beliefs contribute to encouraging or undermining students’ learning; therefore, investigating such literacy to fulfill the teachers’ training needs is essential. This quantitative survey study investigated the current level of 152 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ writing assessment literacy (WAL) in Turkey and identified their training needs in this area by means of a questionnaire. Further, this research explored the teachers’ beliefs about different writing assessment methods, general assessment issues in writing classrooms and then scoring accuracy in writing assessment. Although 80.9% of the teachers stated that they had already received prior training in WAL, a vast majority of the participants (over 90%) stated they need to receive training in all the investigated WAL areas. The training need areas which stood on the highest six ranks included “Using pre-designed integrated writing tasks”, “Designing integrated writing tasks”, “Giving feedback to students based on information from tests/assessment”, “Designing good writing tasks/tests”, “Using the scoring rubrics”, “Designing the scoring rubrics”, “Using self-assessment”, “Using peer-assessment”, and “Using assessment portfolio”. The detailed findings regarding the teachers’ beliefs in the above-mentioned issues are explained and discussed in the paper. To improve the situation, the shortcomings in the language teacher education programs in Turkey should be addressed.

Keywords


EFL (English as a Foreign Language), Writing Assessment Literacy, Teacher Beliefs, Teachers’ Training Needs, Context of Turkey

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.6p.53

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