Trang 1 School of Education and Professional Development An exploration of literacy in classroom assessment of English teachers at a higher educational institution in Vietnam Linh Dam -
School of Education and Professional Development An exploration of literacy in classroom assessment of English teachers at a higher educational institution in Vietnam Linh Dam - U1967862 A dissertation submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) – Intake 2019/2020 ABSTRACT The current phenomenological research attempts to look at literacy in classroom assessment of language teachers from a different perspective compared to the past studies under this theme Rather than measuring the gap in the participants’ understanding of assessment knowledge, the study seeks to explore their assessment literacy through their classroom assessment practices at the interplay of various factors related to their broader social & historical context, their micro professional context, their past assessment experiences, their professional learning and the inner conceptions that underlie their classroom decisions In-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 teachers from a higher educational institution in Vietnam to help the researcher gain insights into the participants’ development of their classroom assessment practices and the experiences of assessment in their own classroom context Main findings from the study show that the teachers perceived their classroom assessment practices as primarily shaped by the curriculum in their professional context, though these may be subject to changes brought about the larger social & historical context, and their learning of assessment which takes place in both formal and informal forms Through their description, aspects in the teachers’ CA practices seemed quite deviant from the principles of AL, however; these are underlined by their own set of conceptions originating from either the teachers’ cognitions or prior experiences of assessment Finally, dimensions in their classroom context and their multiple duties as teaching staff in their professional context are perceived by the teachers as the main factors hindering the teachers from translating their beliefs and knowledge into practices Based on the findings, implications are made for both the teachers’ learning of assessment and policy in the target setting to help teachers advance their literacy in CA amidst these varying influences i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my warmest and sincerest gratitude to Dr Kate Lavender – Senior Lecturer in Lifelong Learning – Department of Initial Teacher Education, who has been my supervisor while I was working on this graduation paper Without her guidance and continuous support during the project, I would not have been able to get to this point Her words of encouragement during our tutorials did pull me back whenever I felt put off by hardships I see myself maturing in terms of both professional expertise and research competence under her supervision My deepest thanks also go to all the English teachers who agreed to take part in the study I could not be luckier to have such devoted and helpful participants who were so willing to spare me their time despite heavy workloads and family commitments Their insightful and truthful response in the data collection process has made this study possible Finally, I am more thankful than ever for my family members and my close friends who have been keeping me grounded throughout this arduous journey I am truly proud to have such a strong support network to my count ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii GLOSSARY v LIST OF FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale & Research Aims Context of the study Overview of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Classroom Assessment 1.1 Definition of Classroom Assessment 1.2 Classroom Assessment Strategies Assessment Literacy 2.1 Tensions in the conceptualization of Assessment Literacy (AL) 2.2 The Chosen Conceptualization of Literacy in Classroom Assessment Development of Classroom Assessment Practices 10 3.1 School Experiences 10 3.2 Historical & Social Context and Professional Context 11 3.3 Teacher Learning 11 Assessment Conceptions & Impacts of Professional Context 12 4.1 Assessment Conceptions 12 4.2 Impacts of professional context 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 14 Methodological Approach 14 Research Method 14 Quality 15 Sampling 16 iii Research Conduct 17 Ethical Considerations 17 Analysis Process 18 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS & DISCUSSION 20 Development of the teachers’ classroom assessment practices 20 1.1 School Experiences 20 1.2 Social & Historical Context 21 1.3 Professional Context 22 1.4 Teacher Learning 23 Meaning of assessment literacy in the teachers’ CA practices and the conceptions underlying their decision-making 25 2.1 Assessment purposes, content & method 25 2.2 Grading 28 2.3 Teacher Feedback 30 2.4 Student-involved assessment 32 2.5 Interpretation & Communication of Assessment Results 33 Impact of professional context as perceived by the teachers 34 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 37 Findings & Implications 37 Limitations & Recommendations 38 Personal & Professional Growth 38 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES Error! 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Bookmark not defined iv GLOSSARY CA - Classroom Assessment AL - Assessment Literacy ELT - English Language Teaching HE - Higher Education CEFR - Common European Framework of Reference for Languages IELTS - International English Language Testing System VSTEP- Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency TOEFL- Test of English as a Foreign Language v LIST OF FIGURES Figures Page Figure 2.1 A Conceptual Framework for Literacy in Classroom Assessment Figure 3.1 Demonstration of themes 19 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This section provides the rationale and aims of the current research As its context is set in a very specific higher educational institution in Vietnam, a thorough description of its background, students, teaching staff and classroom assessment context is given to help readers form a better understanding of the study’s participants as well as findings Rationale & Research Aims For a long time, classroom assessment (CA) was overshadowed by the acknowledged far-reaching effects of large-scale testing, despite the undeniable significant role it plays in the learning process (Stiggins & Conklin, 1992) The same was witnessed in English language education where much attention had been paid to large-scale testing including national exams and popular tests such as IELTS, TOEFL (Sheehan & Munro, 2017) As a result, classroom assessment was left as a pretty under-researched area However, this situation seems to take a turn, when the backwash of high-stake language testing is further scrutinized and put down to assessment taking place in the classroom where the teacher acts as the main agent (Rea-Dickins, 2004) The emphasis is put on the teacher’s ability to successfully embed assessment into teaching practices to promote learning towards better educational outcomes (Sheehan & Munro, 2017) While assessment literacy (AL) is integral for teachers as classroom assessors, it should not only be measured through their understanding of theoretical principles Previous quantitative studies (Hasselgreen, Carlsen & Helness, 2004; Crusan, Plakans & Gebril, 2016), whose findings confirmed lacking AL of English teachers through their scores in a questionnaire, have had their validity challenged by later qualitative studies (Rea-dickins, 2007) Specially, participants were found capable of demonstrating a variety of CA strategies despite not scoring high in those theory-based tests This implicates the pressing need for further studies that attempt to evaluate teachers’ AL through their demonstration of classroom practices However, their knowledge base of assessment is not the sole driving factor for the classroom practices of teachers (Xu & Brown, 2016) In fact, the formation of teacher CA practices is a complex process under the influence of various dynamics related to their past learning experiences, the broader historical & social context, the micro professional context, their professional learning and most importantly their own conceptions of assessment (Looney, Cumming, Kleij & Harris, 2017) This is complemented by dimensions found within their professional context which can hinder teachers from putting knowledge into practices (Barnard & Burn, 2012) Assessment literacy, therefore, should be looked at as teachers’ competence in CA practices at the interplay of these abovementioned factors (Xu & Brown, 2016) Following this direction, the current study hopes to contribute to the limited body of research that endeavours to explore AL of language teachers through multidimensional lenses, rather than judging them as literate or not In the context of Vietnam, there seems to be a lack of study that seeks to explore literacy in CA of language teachers The past studies by Vu (2017) and Pham, Nguyen & Nguyen (2019) did lay the focus on investigating CA practices of English teachers in various Vietnamese settings; however, neither of them took the same direction as this study Moreover, their contexts were set at primary and secondary schools where participants’ CA practices tend to be highly constrained by stakeholders, national curriculum and schoolleaving exams As this study is set at higher educational context where teachers are given excessive autonomy at their hands, it would be captivating to see what the teachers bring into their CA practices to enact their own interpretation of AL All the aforementioned reasons prove the pressing need for the researcher to carry out the current project which targets at exploring literacy in classroom assessment of English teachers at a higher educational institution in Vietnam To realize this ultimate ambition, the research aims at answering the following questions: How the teachers develop their classroom assessment practices? What does assessment literacy mean to the teachers through their classroom assessment practices? What are the conceptions that underlie their decisionmaking? How the teachers perceive the impacts of their professional context on their classroom assessment practices? Context of the study Chosen for this research is a foreign language school belonging to a university in northern Vietnam With its main mission of fostering human resources highly competent in foreign languages for the northern mountainous region of the country, the school trains students who major in languages to become teachers or interpreters Thanks to its growing reputation, the school is welcoming more and more students in recent year However, this seems to put a strain on its limited number of teaching staff who have to deal with large-sized classes comprising of at least 35 students As a young unit with only 13 years of establishment, the school has yet to have its facilities fully invested to meet the standards of a well-catering educational environment Most students come from remote areas where economic and educational conditions are inferior to those in larger cities Partially because of this disadvantaged background, their proficiency is generally lower than the average of language-majoring students all over Vietnam To secure their graduation, they must attain at least level B2 (CEFR or equivalent) in certified exams such as IELTS, TOEFL, VSTEP As mature students admitted at the minimum age of 18, students in Vietnamese higher education (HE) are supposed to be responsible for their own learning progress with less parental and stakeholder involvement (Nguyen, 2011) In general, HE institutions in Vietnam have the rights to internalize their curriculum (Hayden & Lam, 2007) This is no exception to the target setting where its curriculum is designed and approved by the teachers within a specialized department with no interference from higher authorities Half of the main curriculum is devoted to proficiency courses to provide students with an adequate proficiency basis prior to the core major-related modules Each proficiency class is organized into two sessions per week, both of which last three and a haft hour One of them covers reading and writing, while the other is devoted to speaking and listening Each class lasts for 15 semester weeks during which students are assessed by their teacher After that, students have to sit finals where they are assessed by other teachers Results from their classroom assessment account for half of students’ final outcomes of a course These are represented by five grade components (each making up 10%) and generated from students’ performances throughout the semester The teachers have flexibility over the number of grades they can give, just needing to ensure that CA results feature adequate components The other haft is decided by the students’ performance in the final test whose format is always communicated to them at the beginning of the semester Although each course comes with a specific syllabus and textbook, teachers have much autonomy over their lessons plans, supplementary materials and content schedule depending on their class context In every class, the teacher is encouraged to make use of at least two classroom tests for each session during the whole semester; however, test content is completely up to the teacher Unlike those in primary or secondary education, teachers at HE in Vietnam are not put under pressure of students’ school-leaving exams or achievements (Chua & Duong, 2016) The target population of the research are 40 teachers belonging to Department of English in the school Most of them are in the age range between 28 and 36 with at least years of teaching experience There are three teachers younger than this age group with only 1-3 years in the job Several teachers have been inactive in teaching, because they are currently taking further education Except for the department head and some teachers who have teaching workload cutbacks due to their managerial roles in other departments within the school, the others have to take on at least classes per semester both in proficiency subjects and major-related subjects such as linguistics, translation and teaching methodology Besides their main classroom duties, each teacher has to take over others such as student dealings, research output, curriculum revision, invigilation and assessment in the final exams