The Study On Middle School English Teachers’ Assessment Literacy

Researchers have constantly stressed the significant influence of teachers’ assessment practices on students’ language achievement.Long before today’s assessment research,scholars have revealed the educational reality that assessment at school and classroom levels relied heavily on test scores,especially the results of large standardized tests.In addition,some of the content involved in the teaching materials of assessment literacy is often based on psychometrics,which is far from the content of teachers’ assessment practices.With the transformation of assessment paradigm from mainly focusing on psychometrics to close to teaching practice activities,teaching assessment literacy as well as the effectiveness of assessment practice has gradually become the focus of research.What’s more educational departments and schools are increasingly valuing the significant role of assessment in teaching practices which means teachers are required to have higher assessment literacy and are facing greater challenges.With the purpose to reveal the status quo of English teachers’ assessment literacy in Yunnan province and find out the differences among English teachers from differential administrative regions.This study combined quantitative analysis with qulitative analysis,and investigated 106 middle school English teachers from four administrative areas(provincial capital,prefecture-level city,country-level city and rural area).Through the analysis of statistics collected from questionnaire and interview,conclusions were drawn that the overall assessment literacy of Yunnan province is at the middle level.Significant differences of assessment consciousness,skills and attitude were identified among English teachers from different areas and it was tested that no significant differences of assessment knowledge existing among the four regions.The assessment literacy of English teachers in provincial capital city is higher than that in other three regions,English teachers in rural area and county-level city reserved relatively lower assessment attitude and the majority of them still adopt the traditional assessment methods that manifested in relying too much on summative assessment,single assessment modality,improper use of assessment approaches and results.In spite of the differences of assessment literacy among four regions,most ofEnglish teachers in Yunnan province are facing the huge gap between theoretical assessment guidance and real assessment practices.On the basis of the status quo in Yunnan province,the author put forward three suggestions wishing to make a contribution to English teaching assessment literacy.The suggestions are: emphasizing on teaching assessment,localizing teaching assessment and combining theoretical guidance with assessment practices.This study still has some limitations that hope to be overcome in future studies.