A Study Of The Language Assessment Literacy Of Pre-service EFL Teachers In Senior High Schools

Language assessment literacy(LAL),deriving from assessment literacy(AL),refers to the knowledge,skills and principles that stakeholders need to possess in assessment activities.What distinguishes LAL from AL lies in language,the very element of LAL.LAL is a key part of teachers' ability for language teaching,and it is a trait for excellent foreign language teachers.Against the background of “assessment culture” from “test culture” in foreign language education,studies on LAL of foreign language teachers have become a hot issue in foreign language education.In recent years,a number of official documents in China,including English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2018),China's Standards of English Language Ability(2018),etc.have been highlighting LAL and its role for teachers' career development,proposing new requirements for EFL teachers.Studies have shown that LAL of in-service or pre-service EFL teachers is far from satisfactory.However,domestic studies of LAL mainly concentrated on the review of relevant research abroad.There are few empirical studies,and the studies on the LAL of pre-service senior high school EFL teachers are even fewer.The present study clarified the core components of LAL,investigated the characteristics of pre-service senior high school EFL teachers' LAL,and proposed suggestions for the enhancement of their LAL.Mixed methods were adopted in this study: the core components were illustrated in the way of literature review;a questionnaire survey and two groups of semi-structured interviews were conducted respectively to collect quantitative and qualitative data for the exploration of the characteristics of LAL among pre-service senior high school EFL teachers.The participants in questionnaire survey were 65 postgraduates from School of Language,Literature and Culture in a certain international studies university.And then 10 interviewees among these postgraduates and 3 experts in the field of language testing were interviewed for a deep understanding of LAL of pre-service EFL teachers in senior high schools.It was found that(1)“knowledge” was one of the core components of LAL,and it could be divided into three dimensions: language assessment knowledge,test design,developing and scoring knowledge,and test results analysis knowledge;(2)LAL of pre-service senior high school EFL teachers was at a low level,and they had poor understandings of all dimensions,especially that of test results analysis knowledge.In terms of language assessment knowledge dimension,pre-service senior high school EFL teachers could not correctly understand generalizability theory,item response theory,etc.They were not familiar with assessment-related official documents either.For the dimension of test design,developing and scoring knowledge,they were not well developed in designing test tasks,judging item quality,etc.With regards to the dimension of test results analysis knowledge,they were not proficient in applying statistic knowledge;they had limited knowledge to improve test quality based on measurement indicators,such as reliability,difficulty,and discrimination.It can be concluded that starting from the actual situation,the improvement of LAL of pre-service senior high school EFL teachers should be developed in line with their real needs,including assessment practical knowledge,assessment-related official documents,test quality evaluation,and test results analysis.