Study on Constructing English Teachers'Assessment Competency in Senior High School

OUYANG Fen YAO Guizhao

School of Foreign Languages,Gannan Normal University,Ganzhou,341000,China

[Abstract]Assessment in ELT aims to discover what the learners know and what they can do at a certain stage of the learning process.Based on the guidance of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives,the fourth-generation evaluation theory and the ADDIE instructional design,the English teachers' assessment competency is constructed by the ways of the three stages of memorizing and understanding assessment,applying and analyzing assessment and synthesizing and assessing assessment from the perspective of teachers' individual development,which would lead to some suggestions on enhancing the English teachers'assessment knowledge,assessment skills and assessment attitude.

[Keywords] assessment competency;senior high school;individual development

I.Introduction

Evaluation determines the extent to which goals can be achieved while assessment involves the collecting of information or evidence of a learner’s learning progress and achievement over a period of time for the proposes of improving teaching and learning.(Wang,2006:248)The improvement of teachers’ assessment competency is both active and passive.Being active means that the teachers have a different understanding of the assessment along with the development of the era,and take the initiative to explore the new assessment methods,update the assessment concept as well.Being passive is due to the current problem of teachers’ assessment competency.

1.Reforms in assessment

Traditionally,assessment of learning has always been centered on assessment.As a result,the phenomenon of ‘teaching for the test’ often occurs.In the late 1990s,the concept of "assessment for learning" emerged in the United Kingdom,with the aim of taking the student learning process as the object of assessment and paying attention to the different starting points and learning pathways of each student.This new assessment philosophy instructs teachers to pay more attention to students' learning process and developmental prospects,and to move away from the single assessment method of "marks only" and“grades only“.Therefore,teachers need to use a high level of assessment literacy as the basis to promote the change of teachers' assessment philosophy.

Educational changes have made a change in the way of assessment an inevitable trend.The related policies have posed new challenges to senior high school English teachers.First,in 2012,the Ministry of Education promulgated the Professional Standards for Primary and Secondary School Teachers,which explicitly regards teachers' educational assessment skills as a component of teachers' professional competence.On July 24,the “double reduction” policy proposes to ease the burden of excessive homework and off-campus tutoring for students undergoing compulsory education.This document is not only to solve the problem of overburdened students at the compulsory stage,but also to require the coordination of the governance of off-campus training for general high school students.The National English Curriculum in Senior High Schools(2017)requires us to deal with the relationship between teaching,learning and assessment,and promote the integration of teaching,learning and assessment,so as to achieve the purpose of promoting teaching and learning through assessment.The General Plan for Deepening Educational Evaluation Reform in the New Era emphasizes to explore the establishment of a teaching evaluation system for primary and secondary school teachers.The teachers are required to conduct an learning assessment for each student to provide institutional guarantee for teacher evaluation reform in semester.So the reform in assessment requires the teachers’qualified assessment competency from the perspectives of educational policy.

2.Problems existing in teachers’ assessment literacy

There are still many problems existing in teachers' assessment literacy at this stage.Wang(2008)points out that there are serious deviations in the concept of assessment.There exist commonly the phenomena of “assessment for the sake of examination”,“assessment instead of teaching” and “teaching for the sake of management”,the lack of assessment knowledge and low assessment skills as well.On this basis,Hao(2010)suggests that the reasons for this are the lack of institutional regulation,the lack of assessment literacy in pre-service teacher education programmes,the arbitrary nature of assessment practice and the interference of external assessment.Chen and Fu(2011)also point out that teachers' assessment methods are homogeneous and assessment practices tend to be utilitarian.

From the perspectives of the practical subject,the teachers’ professional development is bound to involve the individual teacher and the teacher group.The teachers’ professional development mainly includes two aspects:the collective professional development and the group professional development.(Qian &Jin,2007)From the perspective of training measures,most of the foreign training model,such as "Nebraska Assessment Cluster" model(Roschewski,Gallaher &Isernhagen,2001),and some domestic researches on teacher assessment competency training mostly point to the teacher group.This type of training model is often easy to ignore the individual teachers,and it is diきcult to reflect and realize the actual needs and main value of the individual professional growth and development of teachers.Therefore,this paper tries to explore the construction of the training framework of teacher assessment competency from the perspective of teachers' individual growth.

Ⅱ.Theoretical foundation

1.Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives

In 1956,Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives classified educational objectives into six categories:knowledge,comprehension,application,synthesis,and assessment.This classification has had a significant impact on the development of teaching tests and teaching assessment.Viewing the process of teacher assessment literacy development as a process of continuous self-learning,this study frames assessment literacy through a logical sequence of assessment practices as remembering and understanding,applying and analyzing and evaluating and creating according to Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives.

2.The 4th generation evaluation theory

The 4th generation evaluation is a form of assessment in which the claims,concerns,and issues of stakeholders serve as organizational foci.This study plans to implement a system of post-course academic reviews to remedy the shortcomings of traditional quantitative assessment methods.It draws on the basic concepts of consultative assessment to conduct the review in order to gain the mutual agreement of both teachers and students,which aims to achieve a vision of student development by using goal-oriented documents and practical requirements based on equality,honesty and full consultation between teachers and students.

3.The ADDIE instructional model

The ADDIE model is the generic process traditionally used by instructional designers and training developers.They are the initial letters of the five words,namely the five phases of design it incorporates:Analysis;Design;Development;Implementation;Evaluation,which represent a dynamic,flexible guideline for building effective training and performance support tools.The evaluation phase consists of two parts:formative and summative,which is present in each stage of the ADDIE process and emphasizes the information collecting of teacher’s teaching and students’ learning to assess the attainment of learning objectives in class.

Ⅲ.The three-stages of English teachers’ assessment literacy

According to Bloom’s education objective classification theory,the teacher assessment competency is divided into memorizing and understanding assessment,applying and analyzing assessment and synthesizing and assessing assessment.The parts of the three stages are not separated with each other,but a spiral chain(as shown in the figure).

1.Before class:memorizing and understanding assessment

It’s quite necessary for the teachers to master the knowledge related to assessment and understand the textbook and learning situation by reading books,surfing the Internet and other ways of learning before class.Firstly,understanding the textbook helps teachers to reduce or increase the diきculty according to the students’ situation and predict their progress in the learning process.Secondly,understanding the individual learning difference is necessary for the teachers to judge the students’ progress at different starting points and conduct the assessment scientifically.

2.In class:applying and analyzing assessment

The classroom assessment is generative,so the teachers need to be able to generate an effective assessment immediately after the students’ performance,which puts forward higher requirements for the teachers’ assessment skills.First of all,it’s essential for the teachers to use the appropriate classroom feedback language in class.Proper language often gives students both confidence and motivation.Secondly,it’s creative for the teachers to follow the integration of teaching,learning and assessment.The teaching and learning activities are carried out with certain teaching objectives,and the feedback of the assessment activities should run through the whole process of teaching and learning,in which the attainment of the teaching objectives could be obviously assessed by the teachers during according to their teaching and students’ learning in class.

3.After class:synthesizing and assessing assessment

It’s essential for teachers to develop their correct assessment awareness to make use of the assessing function by synthesizing and assessing.First of all,synthesizing the assessment can help students develop better in the future.In order to find the students’ learning advantages and disadvantages,teachers should make learning assessment by combining different forms of assessment data and evaluating each student’s growth on each aspect during their whole learning period.Secondly,it’s essential for the teachers to assess the assessment.According to the fourth-generation evaluation theory,we can advocate that the learning assessment should be conducted balancedly and negotiated fully to reach a consensus between teachers and students.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

Teachers’ assessment competency is key to assure the students’ learning effectiveness.Based on some related theories,the English teachers’ assessment competency could be constructed by the ways of the three stages from the perspective of teachers' individual development.It would lead to some suggestions on enhancing the English teachers’ assessment knowledge,assessment skills and assessment attitude.So the teachers should be sure of each lesson,then improve constantly their assessment competency through the reflection on each class.The process of developing the teacher’s assessment competency is a process of lifelong learning which acquires the teachers’ constant improvement in their teaching practice year after year,as the assessment should be an ongoing part of every day.