Classroom Assessment Literacy for L2 Writing Teachers
The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed “a phenomenal increase in the testing and assessment responsibilities placed upon language teachers” (Fulcher 2012, p. 113), and as a result, teachers’ assessment literacy has been a cause for concern and
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Classroom Assessment Literacy for L2 Writing Teachers
Introduction The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed “a phenomenal increase in the testing and assessment responsibilities placed upon language teachers” (Fulcher 2012, p. 113), and as a result, teachers’ assessment literacy has been an important topic for discussion and research (Popham 2008; Vogt and Tsagari 2014). More than two decades ago, US assessment scholar Rick Stiggins sounded an alarm about teachers’ inabilities to conduct effective language assessment; he wrote: “we are a nation of assessment illiterates” (Stiggins 1991, p. 535). In the same decade, the UK assessment for learning reform (Black and Wiliam 1998) also triggered considerable interest in teacher assessment literacy. Since then, there has been an increasing realization throughout the world that teacher assessment literacy is underdeveloped (Jin 2010; Popham 2011; Volante and Fazio 2007) and that it warrants urgent attention on teachers’ professional development programs. In L2 school contexts, teachers’ lack of assessment literacy is a cause for concern. Throughout schoolchildren’s more than 10 years of schooling, teachers administer assessment of different kinds on a regular basis, and assessment illiterate teachers are likely to fail their responsibility in designing sound and effective assessments, jeopardizing learning and teaching with dire consequences for students’ future learning. Therefore, examining how assessment literacy can be developed among L2 teachers in school contexts is of paramount importance. With a specific focus on classroom writing, this chapter examines the assessment literacy that L2 school teachers need for conducting effective classroom writing assessment. While the preceding nine chapters have addressed different aspects of classroom writing assessment geared toward helping writing teachers enhance their classroom assessment literacy, this final chapter provides a con-
The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3924-9_11 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 I. Lee, Classroom Writing Assessment and Feedback in L2 School Contexts, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3924-9_10
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10 Classroom Assessment Literacy for L2 Writing Teachers
clusion to the book by discussing what it means for teachers to possess classroom assessment literacy to conduct effective classroom assessment in L2 school writing contexts.
Teacher Assessment Literacy Assessment literacy refers to teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the principles and practices of effective assessment (Carless 2011; Crusan et al. 2016; Popham 2004; Stiggins 2002; Volante and Fazio 2007; Xu and Brown 2016). Specifically, the term “language assessment literacy” is used (Inbar-Lourie 2008) to refer to assessment literacy for language teachers, comprising skills, knowledge, and principles of language testing and assessment (Davies 2008). Language assessment literacy is a multidimensional concept that encompas
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