ESL/EFL instructors’ classroom assessment practices: purposes, methods, and procedures

TLDR

Student assessment is central to teaching and learning, yet little is known about ESL/EFL instructors’ assessment practices at the tertiary level. The study compares assessment purposes, methods, and procedures among Canadian ESL, Hong Kong ESL/EFL, and Chinese EFL instructors. The authors conducted a comparative survey of 267 ESL/EFL instructors across Canadian, Hong Kong, and Chinese contexts. Assessment plays complex, multifaceted roles in tertiary ESL/EFL classrooms, revealing diverse practices.

Abstract

Student assessment plays a central and important role in teaching and learning. Teachers devote a large part of their preparation time to creating instruments and observation procedures, marking, recording, and synthesizing results in informal and formal reports in their daily teaching. A number of studies of the assessment practices used by teachers in regular school classrooms have been undertaken (e.g., Rogers, 1991; Wilson, 1998; 2000). In contrast, less is known about the assessment practices employed by instructors of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL), particularly at the tertiary level. This article reports a comparative survey conducted in ESL=EFL contexts represented by Canadian ESL, Hong Kong ESL=EFL, and Chinese EFL in which 267 ESL or EFL instructors participated, and documents the purposes, methods, and procedures of assessment in these three contexts. The findings demonstrate the complex and multifaceted roles that assessment plays in different teaching and learning settings. They also provide insights about the nature of assessment practices in relation to the ESL=EFL classroom teaching and learning at the tertiary level.