Research On The Evaluation Literacy Of Junior Middle School English Teachers

As one important component of professional qualities,teacher’s assessment literacy is also the reflection of their comprehensive ability.If English teachers have high assessment literacy,they could fully play the incentive and improvement functions of assessment,and thus a positive backwash effect on teaching will be manifested.English teaching assessment for junior students not only involves in students’ basic language knowledge and ability,but also should focus on their attitude,learning methods and cultural sensitivity through their learning process.English teaching assessment aims to improve students’ comprehensive humanity qualities and lay the foundation for their future learning and lifelong development.English teachers’ assessment literacy in junior middle school is embodied in:comprehending and mastering assessment knowledge and theory,designing and implementing effective teaching plan,using various assessment methods,analyzing assessment results objectively and fairly,providing feedback and improvement to teaching.Shifting from “assessment of learning” to “assessment for learning” and finally to “assessment as learning” will be of great benefits to construct an integrative English teaching system of teaching,learning,testing and assessing.Supported by the development-oriented teaching assessment theory,first of all,the literature review about domestic and foreign studies on teachers’ assessment literacy and junior middle school English teachers’ assessment literacy was conducted.English teachers’ assessment literacy in junior middle school then was defined as: after mastering the theory of assessment,teachers can analyze its results objectively by designing and implementing scientific and effective assessment programs as well as using multiple methods.Meanwhile,teachers can get the feedback and improvement in teaching in order to help students acquaint themselves with learning ability and future direction.Then,a questionnaire was carried out to investigate the assessment literacy of 198 English teachers in several junior middle schools in the researcher’s city.SPSS23.0 was applied to analyze English teachers’ assessment literacy from three dimensions of assessment knowledge,assessment cognition and the expectation of assessment literacy improvement.Secondly,10 male and female English teachers with different professional titles and teaching situations were interviewed respectively in different schools in order to further probe into English teachers’ assessment literacy and behaviors.Research findings are as follows:(1)The assessment knowledge of junior middle school English teachers is at a relatively high-level and there is no significant difference indifferent individual situations;(2)The assessment cognition of junior middle school English teachers is also at a relatively high-level,and there is a slightly bigger difference in different individual situations compared with teachers’ assessment knowledge;(3)Almost all junior middle school English teachers have positive and high expectations of improving their assessment literacy.Teacher’s insufficient assessment knowledge,improper daily practice,underestimate of teaching assessment by teachers themselves,weak support of the school can be attributed to the main reasons for the differences in English teacher’s assessment literacy in junior middle school.To effectively improve English teachers’ assessment literacy and performance in junior middle school,the current study comes up with some suggestions for constituting a complete system of teaching,learning,testing and assessing;setting up pre-service education courses of language test and assessment;enriching the related contents of in-service training,and strengthening English teachers’ independent study and practical experience.