A Study On Junior High School English Teachers’ Writing Assessment Literacy

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)highlights that instructional evaluation is of great significance to the improvement of students’ core competence and teachers ought to take their initiatives to design and implement the integration of teaching,learning and assessment,making assessment an indispensable part in English teaching and learning.Writing instruction is one of the most important components of English curriculum in general junior high school.Being one of the core elements in writing instruction,writing assessment is necessarily an essential part of the English curriculum and is closely connected with writing instruction.Writing assessment and writing instruction mutually complement and benefit each other,which in turn requires teachers to equip themselves with professional writing assessment literacy.Therefore,exploring the current situation of junior high school English teachers’ writing assessment literacy crucially contributes to promoting the development of students’ core competence and raising the quality of writing instruction.The study adopts a mixed-method combining qualitative and quantitative data,aiming to explore the status quo of junior high school English teachers’ writing assessment literacy in a public junior high school in Chengdu and relevant factors influencing their writing assessment literacy.It mainly deals with the following two questions: 1)What is the current situation of junior high school English teachers’ writing assessment literacy? 2)What factors are influencing their writing assessment literacy?In order to answer the questions,the author collects data to interpret and analyze teachers’ writing assessment knowledge base,writing assessment beliefs and writing assessment practices and relevant factors by using questionnaires,semi-structured interview and classroom observation.The study suggests that junior high school English teachers know little about the validity and reliability of writing tests and the process of making writing scoring rubrics in terms of their writing assessment knowledge.As for writing assessment beliefs,they lack confidence in their writing assessment knowledge and skills and there exists selfcontradiction about the scoring accuracy of writing in their belief systems.Regarding writing assessment practices,the study indicates that teachers focus little on the dynamic assessment of students’ writing performance and they seldom use tools like portfolios and error logs etc.to collect continuous information about students’ writing performances.On the one hand,junior high school English teachers’ writing assessment literacy is influenced by their limited previous knowledge base,personal attitudes and emotions.On the other hand,factors like limited teaching time,heavy workload and lack of continuous training for teachers exert negative effect on teachers’ writing assessment literacy.Based on the above findings,the author offers some suggestions for improving teachers’ writing assessment literacy from the perspectives of teachers themselves and of local schools so as to generate positive influence on teachers’ professional development.