Language Assessment Knowledge of Pre-Service EFL Teachers

Proceedings of The 6th World Conference on Future of Education

Year: 2023

DOI:

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Language Assessment Knowledge of Pre-Service EFL Teachers

Dr. Elçin ÖLMEZER-ÖZTÜRK

 

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

This study aims to explore language assessment knowledge of 4th year pre-service EFL teachers in a Turkish higher education context. The participants included 108 (67 female and 41 male) senior teacher candidates in the English language teacher education program of four state universities in Turkey. The data were collected through Language Assessment Knowledge Scale developed by Ölmezer- Öztürk and Aydın (2018). LAKS has 60 items with four constructs which are assessing reading, assessing listening, assessing speaking and assessing writing. The answers of the participants were analyzed through descriptive statistics to investigate their language assessment knowledge in general and also regarding each construct. The results demonstrated that the mean score of the participants regarding LAKS is 26,58 meaning more than half of the questions in the scale had been given wrong answers by the participants. When analyzed in detail for each specific construct, it was seen that the highest mean score belonged to assessing reading with the mean score 8.81 out of 15 questions in this construct, and the lowest was assessing listening with the mean score 5,51. Furthermore, there was no difference between female and male participants regarding their language assessment knowledge. To conclude, as language assessment knowledge of the participants was limited, the study offers several suggestions for the development of language assessment knowledge of pre-service EFL teachers.

keywords: assessing language skills, language assessment, pre-service EFL teachers, teacher education, testing