Vietnamese university EFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs and teachers’ practices regarding classroom assessment

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates Vietnamese university EFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs and teachers’ practices regarding classroom assessment. Data were collected from a questionnaire administered to 455 participants (104 teachers and 351 students), interviews with nine teachers and twelve students, and 18 observations of 90-min lessons in five universities in Vietnam. In general, the teachers were aware of all assessment types in the current literature. They dominantly used interactive scaffolding and performance assessment. They also denoted some contextual factors as barriers to their assessment practices, leading to their seeming negligence of other classroom assessment types in their practices. The students preferred formative assessment and some assessment tasks (e.g., group work), while the teachers believed that summative assessment could engage students in learning and associated performance assessment with a summative assessment. Implications for L2 classroom assessment practices are discussed.

Keywords

• Beliefs
• Classroom assessment
• Contextual factors
• Practices
• Teacher cognition