252 / 2018-04-15 21:30:32

Language Assessment Literacy for Korean Teachers of English

language assessment literacy

全体主题 > Principles and methodology of developing standards for language assessment

There has been an interest in identifying language assessment literacy (LAT) for teachers, in order for them to design or select a language assessment, interpret its results, and use the results to make decisions about individual test-takers or language teaching programs (Inbar-Lourie, 2008; Taylor, 2009, 2013). Previous research on LAT, conducted either at a cross-country level (Fulcher, 2012; Vogt & Tsagari, 2014) or at a country level (Jin, 2010; Malone, 2013), indicates that understanding the specific LAT components that teachers need to develop is best understood by considering sociocultural factors of the educational context where teachers actually teach. To address such a need, the present study identifies aspects of LAT that Korean teachers of English are expected to develop and to investigate the teachers’ self-evaluation of their abilities when performing language assessment related tasks.
In this study, we first aim to identify LAT-related knowledge, abilities, or skills that pre-service English teachers are expected to be equipped with. To achieve this goal, we analyzed test items of the ‘Teacher Appointment Examination (TAE)’ from the past five years (2012-2016). Developed and administered by a government affiliated research institute, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, TAE is a highly competitive test that prospective secondary-school teachers must pass to be appointed to public schools. The test serves to define the expertise that English teachers are expected to acquire in a teacher education program. It also serves to assure the national quality of newly appointed teachers. Thus, the content analysis of TAE items was expected to reveal aspects of LAT considered important in the Korean education context. The results of the analysis show that assessment related questions accounted for only a small proportion of the entire test. The few related questions that the TAE did contain tapped into a somewhat narrow range of LAT.
We then set out to investigate the extent in-service teachers self-evaluate themselves on their ability to perform language assessment related tasks. A survey was conducted among in-service teachers (n = 95) who took the TAE from 2012 to 2016, the period when the content of the TAE was investigated in the first phase of the research. Results indicate that teachers want to receive more training on analyzing test results, interpreting test scores, and ensuring the validity of test score interpretation. At the same time, however, they seem confident in their abilities to design test specifications and write test questions.
On the basis of these findings, the study draws implications for the areas of LAT that teacher training in the Korean context should further emphasize, in order to help teachers make the best use of test results in their English teaching.