DEVELOPING LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT LITERACY OF FILIPINO PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS: REFLECTIONS FROM A LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT COURSE

Abstract

Many educational and language scholars in the field have remarked the need to strengthen assessment and testing academic courses in the undergraduate teacher education programs, more specifically in highlighting the importance of language assessment literacy (LAL). With several findings indicating insufficient or impractical assessment components in many of these programs, academics and teachers alike agreed with the significance of developing pre-service teachers’ LAL to reinforce their theoretical knowledge and practical skills of assessment which would enable them to effectively construct and administer language assessments. In order to contribute to the discussions on LAL, this qualitative case study reports on the reflections made by the pre-service teachers (PSTs) of English language education (n=13) on their learning process during a university-based academic course on language test development in the Philippine setting. Guided by an assessment literacy framework, this study aims to explore PSTs’ LAL development and the contribution of the assessment course to this development. Findings revealed that the course produced extensive modifications in understanding the definition and principles of assessment, the various strategies and tools of assessment, and purposes and construction of language assessments. Additionally, the current research offers discussions into the influence of language assessment training on PSTs’ LAL development.

Keywords

• language assessment literacy
• language assessment course
• pre-service teachers
• academic course
• teacher education programs