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Although CA is an important component in education, limited studies have been published on the actual CA practices, especially in primary EFL classrooms Hence, this research is significant in raising awareness of CA among pre-service primary teachers, the researched teachers, and primary teacher trainers.
This study is unique from other studies on CA practices because it does not focus on a particular aspect of the CA practices but examines the comprehensiveness and complexities of the whole process.
The result of the research is useful for the primary schools in reviewing CA practices, helping them be more aware of the issue of assessment and its role in the overall course of teaching English as a foreign language to young learners.
Essentially, the findings are intended to more clearly define the crucial factors underlying the teachers’ classroom assessment practices This, to certain extent, can contribute to greater educational success, improving teachers’ assessment knowledge and practices, and formulating relevant professional development.
This section presents an overview of the context of teaching and assessing English at primary level as well as the context of researching assessment in Vietnam (with a particular reference to Hanoi) It first examines factors affecting teachers’ assessment practices, namely the policy and the status of English subject, the English curriculum, assessment policy, the status of English teachers, and teacher training Then, the section provides an overview of the research context in assessment in general and CA in particular Such background information prompted the research questions for the study in the settings of three schools in Hanoi Generally
2 speaking, the three schools were placed within the context of teaching and assessing English as described below Details about the specific contexts of the three schools are going to be discussed in section 2.4. a Context of teaching and assessing English
Although English has been recognized as a widely taught foreign language in Vietnam, it is still treated as a subject for study rather than as a living language to be spoken in daily conversation (Hayes, 2008a/b; Moon, 2005).
Within the framework of the 2020 Project on Foreign Languages Teaching and Learning in the National Education System in the period 2008-2020, English teaching and learning, which is supposed to be stagely implemented, is to follow 10 year compulsory curriculum, starting from Grade 3 with time allocation of 4 periods of 40 minutes per week.
The 10 year curriculum (MOET, 2010) is claimed to take account of the needs of young learners in primary school, which are different from the needs of older children in secondary school As stated in the document, the principle of developing primary English curriculum is to emphasize communicative competences and therefore seeks to promote more communicative teaching methods through coherent themes and topics, which are meaningful and relevant to the student’s world (MOET, 2010) The guiding principle also specifies that primary age children should be recognized as still developing cognitively (MOET, 2010).
They are not able to think abstractly or to analyze the structures of languages (MOET, 2010).
The teaching and assessing methods need, therefore, to be based on the curiculum with adequate opportunities for the young learners to practise language skills in meaningful contexts that are suitable for their cognitive, social, and psychological development (MOET, 2010) Specifically,
“assessment of student achievement must be aligned with the curriculum aims and performance objectives, based on the performance standards for the four macro-skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing Student achievement is assessed and measured through a combination of continuous and periodic assessment, with an emphasis being placed on evidences of children’s communicative competence in the learning process Evidence of student achievement is also collected from teacher observation and teacher feedback throughout the entire academic year Formats of assessment should be varied, including both written and spoken.” (translated, Guideline 6, p 15).
The curriculum, however, provides merely general guidelines and philosophy of CA As such,prior to 2012, the assessment practice of English was guided by the circular No 32/2009/TT-BGDDT, which was valid for all subjects at primary level In this document, the assessment principles were specified as follows:
Align assessment with standards of knowledge and skills and requirement of attitudes as indicated in the national curriculum, primary level;
Combine quantitative and qualitative assessment; integrate teacher assessment and students’ self-assessment;
Implement transparent, fair, objective, accurate and comprehensive procedure;
Assess and grade student achievement and student developmental progression in different skills and subskills; emphasize an encouragement for student progress without putting pressure on either students or teachers (Article 3, translated)
The document also prescribes the definition and guidance on how to conduct the two main types of CA, namely continuous assessment and periodic assessment (Article 6)' Continuous assessment is defined as the regular act of teacher focusing on student progress in everyday lesson throughout the learning process with the purpose of monitoring, encouraging or reinforcing student learning This act simultaneously enables teachers to modify and update their teaching methods in order to achieve the educational goal Recommended methods for continuous assessment include oral assessment, written assessment (less than 20 minutes), observation of student learning and performance in learning activities, in practice and in application of their knowledge and skills A periodic assessment is defined as an assessment which is carried out after certain period of learning with the purpose of providing teacher, school and authorities with information about student learning in order for such stakeholders to direct or adjust the teaching process or to report the results to parents, which aim at coordinating, facilitating and supporting student learning.
Regarding English subject, the document specifies in detail the minimal quantity of assessments for each type, namely, one assessment per month for continuous and two assessments annually for periodic (i.e, end of term | and end of year), in which the end of year assessment is the most important (Article 6) This means that only the result of the end-of year assessment is recorded in student learning profile and is reported to stakeholders However, as English is an optional subject, the result is not counted as the grounds for ranking students.
Research Questions 8
How and why do the teachers practise classroom assessment the way they do?
1 How is classroom assessment practised by the EFL teachers in three primary schools?
2 To what extent are the teachers’ classroom assessment practices shaped by their beliefs?
3 How are their classroom assessment practices influenced by their actual contexts of teaching?
This explorative and interpretive study investigates how eight EFL teachers in the three primary schools in Hanoi practise CA in their eleven classroom settings and how these practices are influenced by their beliefs and working contexts Although traditional research in the field of assessment quantitatively examine the validity and reliability of external high stakes tests and examinations, this study, by contrast, confines itself to the investigation of teacher assessment practices inside their classrooms and the factors underlying these practices from sociocultural constructivist perspectives CA in this study, therefore, is restricted within the objectives of the current Primary English curriculum (2010) and is qualitatively examined in an alignment with the curriculum.
The impact of the EFL CA practices is reflected in both teachers’ teaching quality and in student progress and achievement However, the study placed more emphasis on the part of teacher than on students since the ultimate goal of the study is for teacher training and teacher professional development Student participants, therefore, were not fully explored Only two students in each classroom were accessed for tracking their individual progress and achievement in English as a reflection of teacher assessment practices in the classroom.
Justification for the choice of the selected student participants is going to be discussed in 2.3.
CA practices involve a number of factors, including (1) teacher’s individual beliefs toward learning, language teaching and assessment, (2) local school context and administration, and
(3) wider external forces like existing societal teaching, learning and assessment culture, reform climate, and the impact of relevant government or quasi-governmental agencies’ policies (Carless, 2005, p 51) This study limits its focus on teachers’ beliefs, school regulations on EFL teaching and assessment, and assessment policies which have been promulgated School administration, existing societal teaching, learning and assessment culture, reform climate, impact of relevant government or quasi-governmental agencies’ policies were discussed only when necessary.
Given the inter-relationship between teaching, learning and assessment, this study, employing a theoretical framework from sociocultural constructivist perspectives, examined CA purposes, approaches, procedures, agents and assessment strategies.
In order to uncover the CA practices conducted by the teachers throughout the whole academic year, the study employed qualitative approach with collective case study as research design Thus, the main methods included interview, observation, document analysis and artefacts However, other instruments such as questionnaire and checklist were also employed for the convenience of collecting, displaying and managing data.
Structure of the Study oo eee ee
The research consists of three parts Part I is the research introduction, which briefly presents the rationale, aims, purposes and scope of the study Part II consists of three chapters ChapterOne (Literature review) reviews the relevant literature on the components of CA, which serve as the theoretical framework for the study on teachers’ beliefs and contextual factors underlying the CA practices This chapter also reviews a large body of previous studies on CA practices and teachers’ beliefs Chapter Two (Research methodology) provides a description of the case study research design as well as an explanation of the steps involved in the data collection, data analysis and data display, followed by measures against the threat to validity and reliability Chapter Three (Findings and Discussions) presents the findings and discussion of the findings in response to the research questions The thesis ends with the Conclusion,which provides a summary of the major findings of the research, recommendations on practices of CA and suggestions for further studies.
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As mentioned in the preceeding section, the terms formative assessment and summative assessment refer to purposes of assessment However, the terms also indicate two more dimensions, namely time and quality.
In terms of time, formative assessment refers to any assessment conducted during instructions.
Given an emphasis on the continuous process, formative assessment is used interchangeably with continuous assessment In contrast, summative assessment emphasizes the final product
11 of a specified learning period and can be termed as periodic (Black & Wiliam, 1998a; Harris
In terms of quality (Bloom et at., 1969 as cited in Black & Wiliam, 1998a/b, 2009), formative assessment incorporates such qualities as the extent to which (1) assessment serves the purpose of improvement in learning and teaching, (2) assessment reveals student learning, (3) assessment information is actually used for learning and teaching modification, and (4) assessment moves student learning forward In contrast, any assessment restricted to identifying student strengths and weaknesses without further intervention is termed summative
(Biggs, 2008; Carless, 2009; Davison & Leung, 2009; Lo, 2006).
Due to their multiple meanings, the terms formative and summative assessment are understood differently by different authors and readers, which leads to a misconception In order to distinguish the meanings, this study employed the terms (1) continuous and periodic assessment to indicate time distinction, (2) formative and summative purposes to show the purpose or the use of assessment, and (3) formative and summative assessment to refer to the quality of assessment.
Defined in this sense, it could be inferred that a periodic assessment can be used formatively to give constructive feedback to students and improve learning Similarly, a continuous assessment activity can be termed summative if it provides learners with a mere quantified grade.
More details about the dimensions or components of CA will be reviewed and discussed in section 1.3.
The next section explores the relationship between classroom assessment and other methods to collect information about student learning It also discusses principles of classroom asessment,especially when dealing with young EFL learners.
Boundary and definition of classroom asSeSSI€NT 5 25 << £++e+sees+ 12 1.2.2 Classroom assessment for young EFL learners - s55 +s + v£++eeseeeseess 14 1.2.2.1 Characteristics of young EFL learners - c5 + St 21 E231 *EESEEsrkerkkskrrkererek 14 1.2.2.2 Principles of classroom assessment of young EFL learners -. ô+++ 16
In education, terms such as evaluation, assessment, measurement and testing are commonly used In the literature, these terms are defined differently by different authors.
Evaluation is defined as the process of gathering information to judge the success and the quality of the total language program (Bachman; 1994, Cameron, 2001; Chapelle and Brindley, 2002, Griffin, 2009; Lynch, Nunan, 2003) Assessment is understood as the process of appropriate interpretation and actions based on appropriate collection of quantitative and
12 qualitative information about student learning (Lynch, 2001; Messick, 1989) Measurement refers to ‘any procedure that attaches numbers to characteristics of people, objects, and so on according to a set rule Measurement is the quantitative description of particular characteristics of a class of people, objects, systems, or events’ (Berry, 2008, p.7) Testing is one of the assessment procedures that can be used to measure a learner’ ability and performance (Bachman; 1994, Cameron, 2001; Chapelle and Brindley, 2002, Griffin, 2009; Lynch, 2001;
The relationship of these terms is illustrated in Figure 1.1,
- with a particular reference to the term classroom assessment As indicated in Figure 1.1, classroom assessment encompasses testing, measurement and
Classroom assessment assessment, but is not a part of evaluation.
Figure 1.1: Classroom assessment in relationship with testing, measurement, assessment, and evaluation Classroom assessment (CA) is defined as the
(Adapted from Lynch, 2002) collection, synthesis, and interpretation of information to aid the teacher in decision making (Airasian, 1997; Cheng, Rogers & Hu, 2004;
Cumming, 2010; Eggen and Kauchak, 2004; Leung & Mohan, 2004; Mathew and Poehner, 2014; McKay, 2006; Rea-Dickins, 2001, 2007; Stobart and Gipps, 2010) It may be formative when teachers collect information about children’s strengths and weaknesses in order to provide feedback to them and to make further decisions about teaching, or it may be summative, when teachers collect information at the end of a period of time, generally to report to stakeholders about children’s progress.
In a more specific manner, Hill and McNamara (2011) define CA as
‘any reflection by teachers (and/or learners) on the qualities of a learner’s (or group of learners’) work and the use of that information by teachers (and/or learners) for teaching, learning (feedback), reporting, management or socialization purposes’
Defined in this way, Hill and McNamara’s (2011) concept of classroom assessment encompasses a variety of student performances of their knowledge, understanding and ability in different methods, ranging from a formal standardized test administered inside the classroom to an informal questioning and giving qualitative feedback during instruction.
Following Hill and McNamara (ibid.), it can be inferred that: (1) the agents of CA process are mainly teachers and learnerss; (2) the focus and methods of assessment are any reflection on the qualities of a learner’s (or group of learners’) work, either formal or informal, summative or formative; and (3) the purposes of assessment are for teaching, learning, reporting, management or socialization Accordingly, CA is an on-going process, which can be
13 conducted throughout the learning process (i.e., regularly or periodically), depending on the problems emerging from individual student or group of students’ work.
For the purpose of this study, Hill and McNamara’s definition of CA (ibid.) is adopted as the working definition The main reason behind this adoption is that unlike other definitions, which emphasize the role of informal formative assessment, Hill and McNamara’s definition provides a comprehensive and balanced view of classroom assessment which includes both formal and informal, summative and formative types of assessment conducted by both teacher and students in classroom context.
1.2.2 Classroom assessment for young EFL learners
Along with the worldwide trend of starting learning EFL from an early age, a large body of studies have been conducted to find out if general principles of language testing and assessment can be applied to classroom assessment of young EFL learners (e.g Hasselgreen, 2005; Shohamy, 2009; McKay, 2006) The findings of these studies show that young learner population is ‘a special case for language assessment’ (McKay, 2006, p.1) who ‘would be carried out under very distinct conditions’ (Hasselgreen, 2005, p.261) This was in part owing to the special characteristics of the young language learners, which requires that assessment for young learners follow certain principles.
The subsequent sections are going to elaborate characteristics of young language learners and principles of assessing them accordingly.
1.2.2.1 Characteristics of young EFL learners
This section highlights children characteristics reflected in their cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth.
According to Piaget (1926, as cited in Cameron, 2001), children cognitive development follows different stages and derives from actions with objects or ideas Children’s cognitive ability develops as gradual growth, passing through different stages, from sensorimotor to pre- operational to concrete operation upon the age of 11 before it can reach formal, logical and abstract thinking as adult The sensorimotor stage extends from birth until the appearance of language, approximately during the first 18 months of life The preoperational stage occurs around the period from 2 to 7 years old During this stage, children learn to use and to represent objects by images, words, and drawings The concrete operation stage extends from the age of 7 until about 11 or 12 years old At this stage, children can think in a logical and coherent way about objects that exist, and about actions or relations that they can see.
According to Piaget (1926, as cited in Nicholls, 2004, p 40) ‘attempts to teach the products of a “later” stage before previous stages have been passed through cannot facilitate development nor can it foster understanding.’ This means that at each stage children are able to carry out some types of cognitive thinking but still “incapable of others” (Cameron, 2001, p 3) Thus, what children can learn will depend on what stage of development they have reached, which can vary from one child to another (Dunn, 1983).
Supplementing the work of Piaget (1926, as cited in Cameron, 2001), children cognitive characteristics in relation to language development have been the subject of many observations and studies, which show that children tend to use such techniques as going for meaning, using chunks of language and inventing new words (Halliwell, 1991; Harmer, 2001;
McKay, 2006; Moon, 2000) They are able to form stable concrete concepts as well as mental reasoning and beliefs, continuing to learn from direct experience and from “sensory input”
(Brown, 1994, p.90), which means they still need to have all five senses stimulated in order to activate their memory and thinking They are continuing to expand their use of their first language to clarify thinking and learning based on functional purposes of language (Brown,
1994; Cameron, 2001; McKay, 2006) However, children are still unable to understand rules, explanations and abstract talk about language (Brown, 1994, p 90) Moreover, the attention span of children is short, as little as 10 to 15 minutes; they are easily diverted and distracted by other pupils (Brown, 1994; Dunn, 1983; Halliwell, 1991; Harmer, 2001; McKay 2006; Moon, 2000; Scott & Ytreberg, 1990; Ur, 1991) They may drop out of a task when they find it difficult, though they are often willing to try a task in order to please the teacher.
Regarding children social growth, children’s contact with their peers and teachers expands greatly during their school years (Dunn, 1983; McKay, 2006) In order to examine the social facet in children development, many researchers, among whom were Bruner (1976) and Vygotsky (1978), have developed Piaget’s work (1929) further to include the effects of the social interaction in which children are learning Bruner, together with Ross and Wood (1976, as cited in Cameron, 2001; in Brewster et al., 2002) introduces the term ‘scaffolding’ to describe a social talk to support a child in carrying out an activity Similar to the concept of scaffolding (1976) is Vygotsky’s perspectives of teaching and learning as ‘a way of working within the zone of proximal development’ Vygotsky (1978, as cited in Lighbown & Spada,
1999) claims that children’ learning is supported by the conversations with adults and peers, but not alone He emphasizes that learning can be enhanced through collaboration with others including teachers and more able peers Vygotsky concludes that “in a supportive interactive environment, the child is able to advance to a higher level of knowledge and performance”
(Lightbown & Spada, 1991, p 23) Drawing on the work of Vygotsky (1978), many practitioners (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Carless, 2011; Leung, 2004; Rea-Dickins, 2000;
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This section reviews the literature on the principles of assessment inherent in the major components of CA, which can be used as a theoretical framework to explore teachers’ beliefs and practices of CA The components of CA practices drawn out from the literature include purposes of CA, approaches of CA, agents of CA, focus of CA, procedures to conduct CA, and assessment strategies The components are structured with an attempt to answer such questions as why/for what purposes CA is administered, what approaches guide CA, who is involved in CA practices, what is assessed in CA, and when and how well CA is conducted.
Definitely, these six components help create a profound theoretical framework, which best informs the design of the study.
The subsequent sections provide more insights into each component related to EFL classroom assessment to young learners.
Regarding the use of assessment results for the pedagogical purpose, assessment can be classified into two categories: assessment of learning (AOL), and assessment for learning (AFL), which is then divided into assessment for teaching (AFT) and assessment as learning (ASL) Among these four categories, assessment of learning is used synonymously with summative assessment while the remainders constitute assessment for formative purposes In this regard, formative assessment is viewed from both teacher and learners’ perspectives, in which AFL and AFT are facilitated with the essential role of teacher whereas ASL is enhanced with the active role of learners.
Specifically, AFL is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for making substantively grounded decisions or judgements about the product of a learning task in order to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there
(Broadfoot et al., 1999 in Lambert & Lines, 2000; Colby and Turner, 2007).
In light of dynamic assessment, AFT is conducted to identify the learners’ zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Griffin et al., 2012; Poehner, 2008; Griffin, 2014) Linking notions of scaffolding and a learner’s ZPD, Poehner and Lantolf (2003) argue that in order to fully understand a learner’s potential to develop, it is necessary to discover his or her zone of proximal development through developmental progressions (Griffin et al., 2012; Griffin, 2014) so that ‘we can observe how the person behaves in response to assistance’ (Poehner and Lantolf, 2003, p 22) As such, scaffolding during assessment helps provide teachers with valuable information to better understand the potential of a learner and be better informed for future intervention (Booth, 2012).
As for ASL, assessment can be used to provide students with opportunities to actively involve themselves in the assessment process, in order to develop and support their self- regulation and learning disposition As such, learners act as active agents in the assessment process, making a meaningful connection between CA and their own learning (Carless, 2009;
Recently, the distinction made between formative and summative tends to be blurred since the same assessment instrument, and even the same assessment results, could be used both formatively and summatively As Gardner (2010) puts it, the most important point is that an assessment activity is not inherently formative or summative (p 6) It is the use of assessment results that determines the type of assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998a/b; Gardner, 2010;
Leung & Teasdale, 2000; McMillan, 2010) If a test is used to help learners improve their learning, then it is mainly formative or AFL If an assessment activity is used to report
18 learners’ standard of performance, then it is mainly summative or AOL Then, an end-of-year test can be used summatively to report performance and formatively if it focuses on reflection and self-evaluation in learners (Carless, 2011) Moreover, in the era of technology, ‘distinction between formative and summative assessment may diminish as the efficiency of technology allows [timely] feedback to be received at both systems’ (i.e., formative and summative assessment) (Griffin, 2011).
This blurry distinction can be visualized in the table below:
Assessment of Learning (AOL) x x Assessment for Learning (AFL) x X Assessment as Learning (ASL) x xX Assessment for Teaching (AFT) x x
Note: X: primary purpose; x: secondary purpose Table 1.1: View on relative distinctions of Formative/ Summative vs AOL/AFL/AFT/ASL
As can be seen from Table 1.1, assessment tools used for formative purpose could provide information about learners’ achievement, which helps in grading and certification Likewise, summative purposes could also serve as feedback for teaching and learning improvement (Broadfoot, 2005; Brookhart, 2010).
In the field of teaching English to young learners, the ultimate aim is to develop communicative language ability in learners Assessment focus, therefore, is to uncover and develop the communicative competence in English and the thinking levels young learners possess in their learning process Thus, underlying the ‘what to assess’ is the construct of an assessment, based on which a number of decisions on the traits of language ability/performance in student learning to be uncovered and decisions on the content of an assessment are made to address the educational objectives.
Most recently, the framework of language user’s competence within the CEFR proposed by the Council of Europe (COE) (2001) defines the notion of communicative language ability as a wide range of knowledge, namely, general competences and communicative language competences This is explained in COE’s document as ‘all human competences contribute in one way or another to the language user’s ability to communicate and may be regarded as aspects of communicative competence’ (COE, 2001, p 101).
Specifically, general competences are described as a combination of declarative knowledge, skills and know-how, existential competence and ablity to learn In order to prepare themselves for effective communication, language learners need declarative knowledge and skills and know-how, which involve knowledge of the world, sociocultural knowledge and intercultural knowledge as well as practical skills and knowhow, social living and intercultural skills and knowhow Moreover, as attitudes, motivation and learning dispositions play a crucial role in the success of language learning, learners also need to develop existential competence and ability to learn (COE, 2001, pp 101-108).
Communicative language competences encompass linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences There are five areas of linguistic competences, namely, lexical competence, grammatical competence, semantic competence, phonological competence, orthographic competence and orthoepic competence (COE, 2001, pp 108 — 118).
Given the proficiency level of young language learners, it is interesting to learn that the CEFR places an emphasis on knowledge and skill in the perception and production of both the symbols of the print or written texts (orthographic) and a correct pronunciation from the written form (orthoepic) Traditionally, orthographic and orthoepic competences are categorized as basic literacy skills which enable children to recognize sound-letter link for correct spelling and pronunciation, establishing a solid foundation for independent reading and writing For language learners, especially for young language learners these skills are substantial When being recognized as two independent competences of the five, orthographic and orthoepic competences occupy an important place in developing communicative competences in young learners Regarding student learning English at primary level, there is a strong showcase for the developing and assessing orthographic and orthoepic competences alongside other well-established components of lexicology, grammar, semantics, and phonology.
Regarding student thinking levels to be revealed in educational objectives, there are a number of profound frameworks of which the most influential one is Bloom’s taxonomy (1956) with adaptation made by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001).
Bloom’s taxonomy describes a mental process graded from Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis to Evaluation (1956, in Lambert & Lines, 2000; in McKay, 2006) Drawing on the work of Bloom’s, Anderson and Krathwohl’s revision (2001) retains Six Cognitive process categories: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create.
By changing the description of thinking levels from the form of nouns (e.g., knowledge,
Chapter Summary eee
This chapter has presented a review of literature about the components of classroom assessment practices, which helps construct the assessment framework to examine the assessment purposes, the assessment focus of English subject, the assessment approaches, the agents, the procedures and the assessment strategies that teachers employ when conducting their assessment practices.
The review of previous research indicated that research on CA practices in EFL classrooms is limited compared to research in other disciplines This gap was greater in studies that focused
38 on the actual CA process for young EFL learners, thus indicating a loose connection between research in CA and research in young EFL learners.
Apparently, there is a gap between the actual CA practices implemented by EFL primary teachers and the ideal theoretical underpinnings of the assessment process As Hill and McNamara (2011) assert, ‘relatively few studies have focused on the actual process of classroom-based assessment and even then only focus on aspects of the assessment process rather than assessment as a comprehensive whole’ (p 418) They, therefore, call for more research to tape into the nature of EFL classroom assessment process In response to this call, this study attempts to understand the whole CA process.
This chapter has also reviewed empirical and theoretical studies conducted about CA practices and beliefs and the relationship between practices and beliefs It is revealed that relatively little has been uncovered about the actual CA practices Regarding the context of Viet Nam, this study is among the pioneers in researching CA practices, especially at primary level.
This chapter is concerned with the research methodology relevant to the study in order to answer the three research questions on the characteristics of the researched CA practices, on teachers’ beliefs and contextual factors underlying the practices, and on the extent to which teachers’ beliefs and working context influence those practices.
It first justifies the choice of its research design, then it describes in detail the instrumentations used to collect, manage, analyze and interpret the data The chapter ends with measures to ensure the validity and reliability of the research.
2.1 Rationale for the research design
This study is grounded in the perceived need to investigate and understand the whole process of CA practice which is embedded in the regular teaching and learning entities The study, therefore, posits itself in the paradigm of qualitative approach Along with case study as the research design for this study, the qualitative process is employed as the main method of inquiry As such, insights into teachers’ and students’ practices of CA are gained mainly through the methods like observation, fieldnotes, audio/video recording, document analysis and interview However, other instruments such as questionnaire and checklist are also employed for the convenience of collecting, displaying and managing data More importantly, the study attempts to identify and interprete the underlying factors that shape the ways the target teachers conduct their assessment.
Specifically, the main reason behind the choice of qualitative approach for this study is threefold First, as qualitative approach bases itself on the in-depth analysis of a topic or problem in order to gain insights into what people believe and feel about the way things are (Gay & Airasian, 2000), the ultimate goal of this study is to understand CA practices and teachers’ beliefs underlying their choices of actions Second, as Nunan (1989) puts it, qualitative approach focuses more on processes of instruction and learning than on the products and outcomes, and its major thrust is to uncover insights into the complexities of teaching and learning, rather than on obtaining ‘proof’ that method X works better than method Y, or that coursebook A works better than coursebook B This approach is therefore centrally concerned with documenting and analyzing what actually goes on in the classroom, rather than simply measuring the end point of learning (p 6).
This completely suits the purpose of this study which attempts to uncover the comprehensive process of CA practices Third, since Creswell (2003) claims that ‘if a concept or phenomenon
40 needs to be understood because little research has been done on it, then it merits a qualitative approach’ (p 22), qualitative approach adopted in this study is justified for the fact that this study is among the pioneers in exploring CA practices at primary level in Vietnamese context.
According to Cohen et al., (2007), Creswell (2007), Merriam (1988), Nunan (1992), Stake (1995) and Yin (1994), case study research belongs to qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a bounded system (case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information (for example, observations, interviews, audiovisual material, and documents and reports), and reports a case description and case-based themes.
Regarding the purpose, case study can also be classified into descriptive, explorative (Yin, 2009) and interpretive (Merriam, 1988) Explorative and interpretive case study is suitable for this study, which helps obtain meaningful findings concerning teachers’ beliefs about CA, and their actual assessment practices In such combination, interpretation is regarded as the primary means for understanding (Cohen et al, 2007; Stake, 1995, p 40).
For the ultimate goal of gaining deep insights into the CA practices, this case study attempts (1) to explore why teachers conduct their assessment practices the way they do, (2) to identify the extent to which their practices reflect their beliefs, and (3) to explore and interprete the contextual factors underlying their current practices The research method, therefore, is selected to explore the teachers’ CA practices, interprete and explain the reasons why the target teachers conduct assessment practices the way they do.
As a case study can be employed for a certain purpose, it carries certain characteristics.
According to Stake (1995), three variations exist in terms of characteristics: single intrinsic case study, single instrumental case study, and collective case study Intrinsic case study 1s described as the case that a researcher has an intrinsic interest in it, not because by studying it the researcher learns about other problems (p 3) Conversely, instrumental case study is used to understand something else through examining a certain case (p 3) This instrumental case study becomes a collective case study if it involves several individual cases (p 4).
The purpose of this study is to uncover teachers’ CA practices and the beliefs underlying those practices within the context of three different primary schools This study, therefore, can be characterized as a collective, instrumental (Stake, 1995) case study, which enables the researcher to provide detailed descriptions of the context surrounding the teachers’ perceptions and practices of CA in three different primary schools As stated by Burns (2009, in Mills,
2009), while the single case study emphasizes close inspection and description of one case, the collective case study with cross-case synthesis and analysis is used to reinforce validity, support understanding, and promote theoretical elaboration (p 266) Miles and Huberman (1994) also mention that collective cases help the researcher find negative cases to strengthen a theory, built through examination of similarities and differences across cases [Collective cases] not only pin down the specific conditions under which a finding will occur but also help us form the more general categories of how those conditions may be related’ (p 173).
Research procedure 0n
This case study was conducted in three stages Generally speaking, the purpose for Stage 1 was to construct the conceptual framework, to identify the boundary and to select the case teachers The purpose for Stage 2 was to investigate the assessment practices through the components of CA experienced by the three teachers in the target classrooms in order to gain deep insights into the complexity and comprehensiveness of the whole CA process The purpose for Stage 3 was similar to the purpose in Stage 2 but an extension was made to encompass the CA practices of all the teachers of English in the three schools.
Regarding procedures, the study started with a survey questionnaire in Stage 1 being admistered for over 100 elite primary teachers of English in order to set the boundary for the case study and to select cases for the later stages, followed by an in-depth case study in Stages 2 and 3 when classroom observations to eight teachers of English in the three primary schools were conducted alongside focus group interviews and stimulated recalls or e-mail/ telephone exchanges It is noted that there were three target teachers who were the focal cases throughout stages 1, 2 and 3 of this case study while the five additional cases in stage 3 were
42 included for the purpose of comparison between cases and across the schools Thus, classroom observations were taken in eleven classes, with the focal cases being observed in 8 lessons for each through stages 2 and 3 while the five additional cases being observed 3 times each in stage 3 Focus group interviews were conducted twice, one before stage 2 and one before stage 3, followed by an individual interview before the end of stage 2 and the end of stage 3.
Stimulated recall or feedback and reflection sections were implemented right after every single classroom observation In addition, the analysis of document and artefacts, and test evaluation were also conducted throughout the research.
Table 2.1 describes the data sources for the details of the research questions that are aligned with the analytical framework derived from the literature review (earlier presented in Chapter One).
Table 2.1: Sources of data for the research sub-questions.
Research Questions Sources of data
1 How is classroom assessment practised by the EFL teachers in the three primary schools?
1.1.1 What are the teachers’ purposes of their | ~ v ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ continuous assessment?
1.1.2 What are the teachers’ purposes of their | #⁄ v ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ periodic assessment?
1.2.1 What is the focus of their continuous ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ assessment?
1.2.2 What is the focus of their periodic ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ assessment?
1.3.1 What methods of assessment do the teachers | ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ use for continuous assessment?
1.3.2 What methods of assessment do the teachers | “ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ use for periodic assessment?
1.4.1 Who are involved in their CA practices? Do ⁄ vw ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ the teachers ulilize student self-/peer-assessment in continuous assessment?
1.4.2 Do the teachers ulilize student self-/peer- v ⁄ assessment in periodic assessment? Why?
1.5.1 What are the procedures of their continuous | #/ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ assessment?
1.5.2 What are the procedures of their periodic | ~ v ⁄ vw assessment?
1.6.1 How do the teachers make student learning ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ visible?
1.6.2 How do the teachers extend student ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ learning?
2 To what extent are the teachers’ classroom assessment practices shaped by their beliefs?
2.1 How do teachers’ beliefs about student ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ learning influence the way they teach?
2.2 How do teachers’ beliefs about learning and ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄
43 teaching influence the way they assess?
2.3 How do teachers’ beliefs about assessment (components of assessment) influence the way they assess?
2.4 How does the assessment policy influence the way they assess?
2.5 How do the school culture and classroom context influence the way they assess?
2.6 What factors help shape the teachers’ beliefs about assessment?
2.7 In what area are their CA practices consistent with their beliefs? Why?
2.8 In what areas do their CA practices impart from their beliefs? Why?
3 How are their classroom assessment teaching? practices influenced by their actual context of
3.1.1 In what area are their assessment practices in classroom context consistent with the assessment policy? Why? vw vw ⁄ wv ⁄ ⁄
3.1.2 In what areas do their assessment practices in classroom context impart from the assessment policy? Why?
3.2.1 In what area are their assessment practices in classroom context consistent with the school regulations/school culture? Why?
3.2.2 In what areas do their assessment practices in classroom context impart from the school regulations/school culture? Why?
Note: D: document; F.L : focus group interview; C.O: classroom observation; S.R: stimulated recall;
A: Artefacts; T.E: test evaluation; I.I: individual interview
PartiCiPaNnt nh
In the first stage, against the settings of the training workshops for primary teachers of
English, the participants responding to the questionnaires include elite? English teachers
(n5, including three teachers B, C and D) from all over Hanoi During the second stage, the participants limit to three English teachers (B, C, D from three different schools B, C and D respectively), where the research is to be based on case studies of 3 English classrooms, focusing on the target teachers’ practices of CA The third stage’s settings for the case study include eight primary English classrooms where eight teachers (including teacher B, C and D and 5 others) from the three schools (B, C and D) conduct their CA practices.
> The key teachers, who were supposed to be the highly-skilled ones, were selected by the local DOETs to participate in the workshop Details about the selection is going to be presented in the following section (i.e., Selection of participants in Stage 1).
Selection of teacher participants in Stage 1
The survey questionnaire (Appendix 3) was conducted for nearly a year and a half®, following the schedules of training workshops planned by the Primary Innovation Project, commencing in March 2008 There were about 180 primary teachers of English from Ha Noi, who were selected by DoET into four different cohorts to take part in four different workshops within the framework of the Primary Innovation Project.
These teachers were selected from over one thousand primary English teachers in Hanoi The basis for the selection was school reputation, teachers’ experience and achievement In general, each district (urban, suburban and rural) was allowed to send from two to three experienced teachers from well-established schools to attend each workshop Once returning from the workshops, the participants were supposed to provide training to the remaining teachers in their schools or groups of schools.
Among the participants roughly 150 teachers were implementing the MOET’s program using the textbook series “Let’s Learn English” The survey questionnaires, then, were delivered to those who were teaching the MOET’s textbooks only, with 116 respondents completing their questionnaires on perceptions and practices of teacher assessment.
Selection of teacher participants in Stage 2
With the purpose to characterize the teachers’ CA practices in primary English classrooms, the study aims to select cases who are expected to possess sufficient knowledge and skills of both Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) and assessment because relevance of the cases for the study purpose is the most important criterion for selection (Mills et al., 2009).
However, as mentioned in the Rationale of the study in the Introduction part, almost all English teachers in primary schools have been trained to teach lower or upper secondary students (Hayes, 2008; Moon, 2005a/b); as a result, they have to acquire the qualification, experience, knowledge and skills of teaching and assessing young learners on the job Thus, one of the aims of the questionnaire was to elicit such qualification, experience, knowlegde and skills Based on the results of the questionnaire (Appendix 4), the criteria for the selection, therefore, include (1) better qualification and experience toward assessing and teaching young English learners, (2) better understanding of CA purposes, methods and procedures, and (3) better assessment strategies on designing tests/assessment tasks and giving feedback As such, it is believed that teachers with good understanding of assessment and TEYL qualification are ° The questionnaires were delivered to four cohorts of participants taking part in four different workshops, with the first workshop in September 2008, the second — March 2009, the third — July 2009, and the fouth — February 2010.
45 likely to give maximal information about the specific features and characteristics of the phenomenon of CA practices.
Thus, it can be said that this case study employed both purposive and convenient sampling (Cohen et al., 2007; Lankshear & Knobel, 2004; Silverman, 2008) In this sense, the three teachers selected were all qualified, experienced and demonstrated good understanding of teaching and assessing English for young learners (based on the results of the questionnaire, p.
20), among whom teachers C and D were key primary English teacher trainers whereas teacher B had been awarded ‘Excellent Teacher’ status by a suburban district of Ha Noi The reason behind this purposive sampling (Cohen et al., 2007; Lankshear & Knobel, 2004;
Silverman, 2008) is that the researcher seek elements of effective CA strategies in everyday teaching, integrated with instruction Furthermore, as defined by Black and Wiliam (1998a), the effective and useful elements in the assessment practice of good teachers are considered to be of much higher quality than those of less-able teachers More importantly, teachers C and D are primary teacher trainers who received professional training from experts in the field; therefore they are thought of as influential agents in primary English innovation, within which assessment has been seen as an important strand.
The three schools the teachers work for are also well-established and recognized as leading schools in teaching and learning achievement Another characteristic is that the schools are located in three different districts of Hanoi, one in the old-quarter, one in less crowded area and one in the suburb.
A brief description of the three focal teachers is provided as follows:
Teacher B went through the college to be a lower secondary school English teacher She started her career as a middle school teacher of English for 3 years before she moved to school B near her home and has been teaching here for nearly 10 years She used to be a contracted teacher paid on an hourly rate She gained her permanent status in 2011, being the only full time teacher of English in school B Like the majority of primary teachers of English, teacher B did not receive any official training for TEYL, however, she manages to continue her professional development by attending several TEYL training workshops, or exchanging experiences with colleagues Having permanent status, she teaches 6 English classes in school B, mainly grade 3 and one class of grade 5 with a total of 24 periods a week There is an average of 32 children in her classes Compared to other teacher of primary English, she
46 claimed to have a strong grammatical knowledge of the language Her strength is reported to possess good knowledge plus the ability to ‘stir’ the learning environment.
Teacher C is very experienced with 19 years of teaching at the primary school C She had completed a four-year Teacher Training Degree in Foreign Languages at Ha Noi University of Education (HUE) and has recently earned a certificate in specialist TEYL from British Council’s Primary Innovation Project Obtaining permanent status, teacher C is in charge of 12 English classes in school C, ranging from grade 3 to grade 5 with a total of 24 periods a week.
There is an average of 50 children in her classes and children seem attentive and participate well Alongside the workload at school, she manages to run her private evening classes for young learners at her house with the class size being roughly 20 children Teacher C is a devoted and creative teacher She loves children and demonstrates a strong commitment with her job Free from housework duty, she usually spends her free time preparing the materials for next classes Whenever there is a training workshop or conference on language teaching available to her, she manages to attend She commented that her pupils liked English She said
‘they like English because they like the teacher’.
Teacher D has been teaching for 17 years in her primary school D as a long-term-contracted teacher of English Having possessed a university diploma in language teaching plus a certificate in TEYL, she is qualified in teaching English to young learners She is responsible for 15 English classes with a total of 30 periods a week Besides the school work, she actively takes part in other professional activities, including attending workshops, writing reference books for the MOET, training primary teachers, editing (since 2010) primary English textbooks published by the Education House and so on She mentioned in the questionnaire that the textbook is not very interesting, so she always adapts the syllabus to suit the children characteristics The children seem very interested and excited by the lesson and participate actively in her lessons The teacher’s manner is very lively and engaging.
Selection of grade level in Stage 2
Description of the three SChOOI]S 1000
School B, a rural state primary school in Eastern Ha Noi, has more than 750 children between the age of 6 and 12 years (grade | to 5) Located in less crowded area, the school has a large campus of four 3-storey buildings which carter 24 classrooms The school has been one of the
49 schools of choice in the region This leads to a big investment from the district and the community as well to create high-quality infrastructure and learning and teaching environment The school is organized around the conventional model of primary schools, with five classrooms at each grade level and one teacher for each class teaching every subject except English, art, music and physical education Class size varies from 30 children per classroom to as many as 40 All teachers are fully state-certified in their area of employment.
The majority of children come from families of workers who work for joint-venture factories and companies nearby This school serves semi-boarding (on full day basis) children who stay at school from morning till late afternoon with lunches and afternoon naps provided Children have regular timetable in all mornings whereas extra classes of Maths, Vietnamese and English are carried out in afternoons Since the academic year 2009-2010 children have had choices of attending English phonics classes for grades 1 and 2 with an extra tuition fee of VND 50,000 per month From grade 3 onwards, children learn English as an optional subject in their regular timetable and in intensive classes of English in the afternoon, which means that children have 4 periods of 35- 40 minutes of English weekly The teaching staff of English subject consists of three teachers, among whom teacher B is permanent (full time employee) and teachers B1 and B2 are contracted (seasoned employee) Teacher B2 teaches both English and ICT.
Due to a small number of English teachers, they are merged with another group of teachers of ICT and conduct monthly academic meetings for both ICT and English teachers Teacher B is the head of the group who is responsible for the academic and administrative tasks Moreover, she is thoughtful and serious about the quality of the English teaching and assessment in the school As such, all the teaching/assessment materials and lesson plans are shared and discussed among the three teachers before their actual use Periodic tests are also co-designed and administered in the same way.
School C is a famous inner-city school with approximately 1600 children from grade 1 to grade 5 This public school is continuously among top 5 best primary schools of Ha Noi.
During three academic years 2009-2012 the school attained notice as having the highest level of learning and teaching achievement in HaNoi In order to maintain the long-established reputation, the school has attracted the best teachers of all subjects The majority of children, therefore, are from middle-class families where parents take sufficient care for their children’s learning achievement as well as learning and teaching quality The school is located in the
50 most crowded district of the city-the old quarters, so the campus is not very large but has to accommodate 35 classes of roughly 50 children each The building was enlarged and renovated in 2008 to create a traditional classroom arrangement This reconstruction provided the school with 6 more classrooms, a computer lab, an expanded library as well as additional office space at an expense of the smaller school yard Owing to this renovation, every classroom is equipped with modern technology facilities such as LCD televisions, projectors, laptops, overhead projectors, and so on The computer lab with more than 30 personal computers is also served as the language laboratory for children to practice English In terms of facilities for teaching English, the school provides an ideal condition, compared to other schools In the school English is taught from grade 3 with time allocation of 2 periods of 40 minutes a week The school, however, does not provide the phonics program as in other schools One of the reasons is that the school has to share the campus with another primary school, which means classes are all delivered in merely one part of the day, namely in the morning from 8 to 11 The teaching staff of English subject consists of three teachers, one of whom is permanent (passed the examination for permanent employment in 2010) one is contracted and one is a novice who has yet signed the contract of employment (since 2012).
As a common practice in primary school, the English teachers are placed in an academic and specialized group with teachers of Arts Teacher C used to lead the group for a long period of time, but from the academic year 2010 -2011 onward she resigned as she has been assigned ever since to provide mentoring to novice teachers of English in the school (to maintain the school reputation) The school recruitment follows a strict procedure in which novice teachers are not allowed to teach for at least one academic year Instead, they are to observe classes and plan lessons under the guidance of experienced teachers In this sense, teacher C1, who started her career in 2010, had received one-year mentoring from teacher C before she officially started teaching in the academic year 2011-2012 Similarly, teacher C2 has recently been able to conduct her teaching since the academic year 2013-2014 The three teachers develop their teaching/assessment materials independently but all the lesson plans and tests written by teachers Cl and C2 have to be approved by teacher C Periodic and final tests are designed by teacher C; and while the former is administered by English teachers in their own classes in their regular timetable, the latter is administered to all students from grades 3 to 5 at the same time by class teachers.
School D, also a well-known urban public school, serves 1700 children between the ages of 6 and 12 Established in 1974, the school is one of the leading schools of the district There are
54 teachers responsible for 36 classrooms The school is on a split campus, with two sites more than three kilometres apart The main site accomodates only 24 classrooms The school has to hire another site that is out of the walking distance to provide places for lunches, afternoon naps and intensive classes of Maths and Vietnamese This arises from the problem of the school infrastructure that cannot cater to the demand of semi-boarding During the day children are commuted between the sites by school bus Since the academic year 2009-2010 children have had choices of attending English phonics classes from grade 2 with an extra tuition fee of VND 50,000 per month From grade 3 onwards, children learn English as an optional subject in their regular timetable, which means that children have 2 periods of 35- 40 minutes of English weekly The teaching staff of English subject consists of three teachers, of whom one is permanent (teacher D1, in 2012), one is long-termed (Teacher D) and one is short-termed.
Since school D has a disadvantage of split campuses, no face to face meetings within the academic groups have been required This partly explains for the lack of administrative management within the academic and specialized groups As such, English teachers have the freedom to teach in their own way, being responsible for their own teaching, communicating with one another mainly via email or telephone Moreover, the school does not regulate any procedures for continuous, mid-term, and end-of-term-1 assessments Therefore, the head of English teachers, teacher D1 — the only permanent teacher of English in the school allows the English teachers in her group to be self-responsible for their own classes As such all the continuous and periodic assessments are conducted by individual teachers of English, with each teacher designing tests for their own classes and administering the periodic tests within two weeks during a certain period of time specified by the school In 2012 the school signed a contract with an education company Since then this company has provided the school with teachers of English phonics and administered the whole process of final assessment for the school.
This study employed qualitative methods of data collection to tap into the complexities involved in teachers’ practices of CA, among which observations and interviews are the primary tools.
Specifically, data collection was chronologically done throughout the whole academic year with such tools as: (1) document on assessment guidelines, the new pilot English Language Curriculum Guide (2010), (2) survey questionnaire in Stage | to select the focal teachers, (3)
52 focus group interviews before the whole process of classroom observation with the three English teachers in stage 2, and with 8 cases in stage 3; (4) classroom observations followed by stimulated recalls, emails and telephone exchanges for reflection; (5) artefacts on syllabus, lesson plans, test format from the target teachers and other sources such as worksheets, test paper and students’ notebooks/ workbooks, and (6) individual interviews to the eight teachers after the whole process of the research As agreed upon, data collected through triangulation tend to increase the potentials of being valid and reliable.
Dealing with the design and administration of the survey questionnaire and interviews, the researcher also followed some guidelines suggested by Campbell et al (2004); Cohen ef al.
(2007); Lankshear and Knobel (2004); Silverman & Marvasti (2008) in order to reach valid and reliable data.
First, for the survey questionnaire both direct and indirect questions were used with the purpose of cross-check After being reviewed and adapted by the panel of key primary trainers with a pilot to nearly 30 primary teachers, the survey questionnaires (in Vietnamese) were delivered to the elite teachers in the first morning of the three-day TEYL training workshops.
The researcher spent 10-15 or so minutes going through the questions to make sure that all respondents understand the content as it is purported This is important because if different respondents understand the same questions in different ways, it is impossible to ensure reliability and validity (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004, p 182) In order to provide information regarding the background for the study, and to verify the findings from the questionnaires and the follow-up interviews, the researcher obtained copies of various documents regarding assessment guidelines such as the temporary and updated English language curriculum and so on Such information was expected to give the researcher the frame of reference during the construction and analysis of the questionnaire and the follow-up interviews.
Second, regarding data obtained from the focus group interviews and reflection/stimulated recall sessions, the researcher often fear that the participants’ responses may differ from their
‘actual’ opinions on certain themes, because they either want to please the researcher, feel constrained by the interview situation from expressing their views, or aim to retain a given image for themselves and their community (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004) Aware of the threats, the researcher strived to minimize the risk by making the participants feel comfortable so that they could freely express their opinions.
Appointments were made in advance with the participants to make sure that they were available to spare time for the interviews All interview questions, mainly open ended, were
Data CONCCtION oc
Third, in relation to the data gathered from classroom observations, a careful procedure was implemented with considerations of consistency and verification Consistency means that the same observation tools were used in all lessons observed Verification means that applying multiple observation tools (ranging from checklists, tally sheets, field notes to videotapes) and co-observing help gain a rigorous picture of what actually happening.
The following sections provide more details of the tools for data collection.
2.5.1 Instruments for data collection 2.5.1.1 Questionnaire and follow-up interview to select teachers in Stage 1 In order to set the boundary for the study as well as to select the cases, a survey questionnaire which was distributed to the elite primary teachers during their TEYL training workshops held by the Primary Innovation Project in partnership with Ha Noi DoET The survey questionnaire was written in Vietnamese and a total of 116 primary teachers responded (out of 145).
In order to examine the validity of the survey questionnaire, it was reviewed by a panel of key primary teacher trainers including college lectures and primary teachers (N) The panel adapted some items to ensure the transparence and validity of the explorative tools regarding teachers’ perceptions of CA practices, followed by a pilot to 30 primary teachers The three sections of the survey (including the demographic information) combined items of mainly multiple-choice and rating-scale with a few open-ended (Appendix 1A) Generally, open- ended questions have potentials of providing rich and unbiased information since respondents are given the opportunity to respond in their own words, rather than being forced to choose from fixed responses However, this type of questions is rather demanding in that it requires a written comment from the respondents In so doing, the respondents have to actively think and jot down their thoughts This partly explains for the reason why respondents tend to omit open-ended questions or mark them as “No ideas” Moreover, data from open-ended questions have to be coded, analyzed and interpreted before quantifying Being aware of that
54 inconvenience, the researcher tried to limit the number of open-ended questions to just 3 items.
The questionnaire was constructed to collect data in five major areas, including (1) teachers’ background information on qualification and experience related to teaching and assessing English to young learners, (2) their understanding of CA philosophy, purposes, methods and procedures, (3) their strategies on designing tests/assessment tasks and giving feedback, (4) their strengths in enhancing student learning in their English classrooms, and (5) factors hindering the use of CA (Appendix 3).
There were, obviously, some unavoidable misleading information generated from the questionnaire about teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of CA Thus, it was felt a need for a further investigation to tap into their actual thoughts, which was to be done through the follow-up interviews.
In order to clarify some ambiguity and probe into in-depth thoughts related to the responses, the researcher selected some respondents and made informal focus-group interviews This was done during the TEYL training workshops, where the researcher managed to find some time available either in the coffee break or lunch time to talk to the participants As mentioned earlier, there were four different cohorts of teachers attending the four different workshops, the survey questionnaire and the follow-up interviews were conducted at four different times between 2009 and early 2010 The focus group interviews, then, were conducted with four different groups of five to six members, making a total of 21 respondents The researcher had prepared 10 questions in mind but let the conversation go naturally with just a few leading questions Most of the questions, adapted from the questionnaire designed by Chan (2006), were open-ended, based on the responses from the survey questionnaire (Appendix 5).
For the space constraints in this thesis report, the results of the questionnaire and the focus group interviews in Stage | are presented in Appendices 1, 4 and 5.
2.5.1.2 Focus-group interviews in Stage 2 and Stage 3
Before carrying out classroom observation in the classrooms in Stage 2 and Stage 3, a focus- group interview with teachers B, C and D (in Stage 2) and with the 8 teachers (including teachers B, C and D) within every single school (in Stage 3) was arranged (A sample of the focus group interview is provided in Appendix 6.)
The purpose of the focus group interview was seeking an understanding of teachers’ practices of CA throughout the academic year and their beliefs about children learning, teaching and
55 assessment (including the components of CA practices that are presented in the literarure review), which are thought to create the foundation for their CA practices.
The procedure in stage 3 resembles the one in Stage 2 (Appendices 1, 6), except for one difference In Stage 2 there was one focus group comprising teachers B, C and D wherease in Stage 3 there were three school focus groups (i.e., school B focus group included teachers B, BI and B2; School C: C, Cl and C2; and School D: D and DI) An email in Vietnamese informing the interested areas and possible questions for the interview had been sent to individual teachers The meeting was arranged in a quiet coffee shop, which lasted two hours or so on average.
Specifically, the group of three focal cases B, C and D in stage 2 and three focus school groups of all eight cases (including teachers B, C and D) in Stage 3 were interviewed Such focus group interviews were all semi-structured, with the following five leading questions:
1 How do children learn English?
2 How do you teach English to children? What is your focus?
3 Why do you assess children? For what purposes?
4 When planning learning activities/assessment tasks for children, what kind of information about them is useful for your planning ? 5 When and how do you monitor children progress and assess/measure their achievement? Can you briefly describe the assessment procedure you go through in an academic year? What do you do with the results of such assessment?
The 5 overarching questions were aligned with the research questions, exploring teachers’ perception of teaching, learning and assessment, the focus of assessment, the agents of assessment, procedures of assessment throughout the academic year, purpose of different kinds of assessment and assessment techniques and strategies such as giving feedback, scaffolding and use of assessment results The type of the questions was open-ended to encourage the participants to verbalize undirected thoughts or feelings they had regarding the entire experience In order to uncover the teachers’ beliefs and their guided values or theories underpinning their practices, these questions were also asked:
(1) What theories/documents guide(d) you to do so?
(2) How did you approach the idea of ?
(3) Based on what idea/theory did you internalize the way to ?
(4) What makes/made you think that ?
(5) Based on what point of view did you claim that ?
Due to specific responses of the target teachers, a separate set of further questions were developed for individual teachers in the focus groups and sent to them via emails However, the questions still fit the research questions and aligned with the predetermined set of the five overarching questions for Stage 2 (See Appendix 1| for data collection protocol)
Compared to individual interviews, a focus group interview has an advantage of providing ‘the potential for discussions to develop, thus yielding a wide range of responses (Cohen et al., 2007, p 373) However, its drawback lies in the fact that there might be dominating individuals to influence other members’ ideas or there might be sensitive topics that individuals hesitate to share with the group Thus, in order to avoid such threats, all the participants in each focus group interview had a chance to present their ideas and was given an equal amount of time to express their own ideas When there arose controversial or sensitive issues, the participants were approached individually on another occasion in order to avoid being heard by other participants.
2.5.1.3 Stimulated recalls after each classroom observation session in Stages 2, 3
Stimulated recall is a retrospective technique in which the researcher elicits teachers’ thoughts of what was happening at the time that the teaching and learning took place in the video recorded and transcribed parts of a lesson (Nunan, 1992, p 94).
This technique is effective in engaging teachers in their own assessment practices, and to develop a culture of self-evaluation and reflective approach to teaching and assessment (Nunan, 1992) In research on teachers’ beliefs, this technique is effective in eliciting the reasoning and philosophy behind teachers’ actions (Phipps & Borg, 2009) Thus, this technique has the potential to make the teachers’ tacit and implicit beliefs explicit.
Measures to reduce subjectivity and increase Validity s55 ô++sk+svsseesseeeseese 61 2.8 Chapter SUMMALY 0.0.0
Weaknesses of a case study rest in its subjectivity and threats to validity This section, therefore, addresses measures to overcome such weaknesses.
In case study the researcher has been seen as the primary instrument because the investigation of the natural phenomenon is filtered through the researcher’s lens (Patton, 2002, p 109).
Therefore, the researcher’s educational background knowledge and skills about the studied phenomenon play a crucial role in validating the data Moreover, since the researcher is at the
61 center of qualitative research, the researcher’s experience and perspectives brought to the field need to be revealed for credibility purposes (Patton, 2002).
As a primary English teacher trainer, the researcher had the opportunity to collaborate with a small number of university/institute professors, colleagues and outstanding primary English teachers in the development process of the primary English curriculum and other related documents providing teaching techniques and assessment guidelines This experience has been largely influential for shaping the researcher’s perspectives and beliefs Specifically, the researcher could see that the primary English teachers themselves have valuable knowledge about their actual practices in their specific contexts that they shared with the professors and policy makers However, their voices were not fully heard and understood Moeover, there seemed to be a long distance between what was decided for them and what they found feasible in their teaching context.
In addition, the researcher is influenced by critical pedagogy and learning-centered approach, which requires the researcher to adopt a more explicit multilayered perspective in which the local and particular is clearly as important as the global and common (Hall, 2004, p 4).
It means that when examining the target teachers’ practices of CA, it is necessary for the researcher to consider the local context of their practices which may prevent them from implementing the ideal practices as prescribed Thus, when adopting local lenses, the researcher attempts to interprete the phenomenon in its nature and learn to understand how the teachers and students make sense out of their practice and to capture their thinking from their perspective By so doing the researcher can grasp and interprete ‘meanings’ in order to understand the complexities of meanings (Walliman, 2001, p 165).
Moreover, in order to increase validity, this case study utilized triangluation In terms of time triangulation, this study was conducted over a period of three years with considerations of changes during the process of classroom observations, interviews and stimulated recalls In terms of space triangulation, the three schools chosen are located in different parts of Ha Noi.
Though 8 cases in 3 primary schools can hardly imply a high degree of objectivity, they do reduce the extent to which subjective and bias interpretations affect the findings, simultaneously gaining more information for verification (Miles & Huberman, 1994, pp 172- 174) since ‘the evidence from multiple cases is often considered more compelling, and the overall study is therefore regarded as being more robust’ (Yin, 2003, p 46).
Regarding combined levels of triangulation, data collection and analysis were taken at both individual level and group level In the regard of theoretical triangulation, different theories of
62 learning and different framework of CA (e.g., Black & Wiliam 1998 a/b; Brookhart, 2008;
Lynch, 2001; McKay, 2006; McMillan, 2010; Poehner, 2008; Ramaprasad, 1983; Rea- Dickins, 2001; Russell & Airasian, 2012; Sadler, 1989; Stobart & Gipps, 2010; Torrance &
Pryor, 1998) were examined, which help widen the viewpoint of the issue depicted.
Investigator triangulation was also employed throughout the study, ranging from panel reviewing the survey questionnaire, co-observers in classroom visits, and critical friends providing feedback on the various aspects of the research, namely research procedure, research methodology, data analysis and the findings.
Finally, methodological triangulation using the methods of classroom observations backed up with interviews, artefacts and document analysis on the same object of the study was utilized to minimize bias of my interpretations of the findings.
Involving the participants and others into the process of data analysis was also considered as a good guard against the threat of subjectivity As Lankshear and Knobel (2004) suggest, researchers should check ‘with the research participants that what we (the researchers) think they have said is what they in fact intended to say’ (p 183) In this study, the researcher applied two techniques regarding this respondent validation The first technique — clarification and confirmation, was employed right at the heart of the events (i.e, in the interviews or in classroom observations) By asking questions like “What do you mean by ?/ Can you give an example of ?/ From my understanding what you say/ do is Is that right?” The second technique was sending the participants the condensed data collected and where possible the analysis and interpretation related to their responses/actions By so doing, the researcher could get feedback on the data to ensure the truthfulness Alongside involving the participants, the researcher managed to get help from critical friends (Campbell et al., 2004) who could discuss and gave feedback to the study By talking through various aspects of the research, especially the data and the findings, the researcher received critical arguments which help reduce bias and subjectivity.
This chapter has provided the rationale for employing qualitative approach and case study as it is the most appropriate research design for this research The methods and instruments of data collection and analysis have been discussed, with the detailed procedures of collecting and analyzing data being provided Measures against the threats to reliability and validity are also examined.
A brief research procedure is summarized as follows:
Prior to the beginning of the academic year, the teachers were interviewed about the characteristics of children learning, the aims and foci of their teaching, the purposes, methods/approaches, agents, focus, procedures and strategies of their assessment for the whole academic year, and the contextual factors influencing their CA practices They then were observed in their daily asessment practices, and their episodes of assessment behaviours were recorded and analyzed in relation to their previously stated beliefs Stimulated recalls also triggered their beliefs underlying their assessment behaviours and actions in particular moments In addition, analysis of the artefacts (e.g., test evaluation, analysis of student notebook/workbook to track progress and achievement ) provided more insights into the CA purposes, methods/approaches, agents, focus, procedures and assessment strategies Finally, after the end of the academic year, the teachers were interviewed again in order to confirm the consistencies or the discrepancies between their beliefs and practices, and to identify the factors imparting their practices from their beliefs.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS HH, 65 3.1 Teachers’ self-reported practices and beliefs - - -s + k+k k9 vs ng nưệp 65 3.1.1 Teachers’ beliefs about children as young language ẽ€arn€rs ôs2 66 3.1.2 Teachers’ beliefs about assessment eee cceeeseeeeeteeeeseeeeseseeeeseseessseeetseeeseseeeeaes 68 3.2 Teachers’ classroom assessmenf DACfICCS 6 6s 3 1121 2319 1 91 21 2 ng nưệp 77 KV oan .na
Observing a typical student work to provide feedback for the whole class
In all the eleven primary English classrooms practised by the eight teachers, a majority of whole class teaching and assessing was implemented with little monitor and scaffolding to individual students The teachers often called a student, presumably, a good one to do the work on the board or called several students to play particular language games Then, the teachers had to monitor only such a few students as a way of tracking children’ acquisition of the identified skill and their understanding For the revision section, once the teacher called a less able student, then the chance they collected information of the actual level of whole class understanding increased The problem of this practice is that some lazy or less able children who did not/could not do the task tended to copy the work on the board rather than tried it for themselves Besides, once the teacher failed to monitor/check their work, there was no drive for them to try The good side about this practice lies in the decisions made by the teachers about student learning The following scenarios illustrate the point.
Scenario 3.2.1.1.1 Adapting teaching as the result of checking a typical student work
Table 3.1: Whole class teaching as result of checking sample of student work
Lesson objectives: Introducing classroom objects and expressing classroom commands By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to remember how to give commands; read and write the sentences about classroom objects.
Task demand: Ss were required to hear the word, link the sound with the meaning in the picture, navigate the picture of the word related to the sound they hear, quickly react in order to slap the correct picture, then write the word under the picture.
Teacher C stuck 6 pictures of school objects onto the board She called on 10 children, divided into two teams of 5, who were standing in two lines, facing the board.
Teacher C modeled with one example: pencil The student from the left (S1) line slapped the picture of eraser while the student from the right line (S2) slapped the picture of pen Whole class laughed.
Teacher C asked the two children what word they heard They all supplied the correct word The teacher then asked why they slapped the wrong pictures S1 replied because he remembered the wrong position of the picture S2 replied he mistook picture of pen for picture of pencil Teacher C continued with the procedure for the rest of the words In turn 4, S7 wrote the word
“schoolbag° Teacher C gave a clue: “one ô letter missing Remember the word ‘school’.
What’s the last letter?” S5 then managed to correct it for herself In turn 5, S10 wrote the word ‘erasor’ Teacher C asked him to look at the word again to check if it was right or not S10 could not correct it Teacher C
In this task, teacher C both organized the activity and observed the children doing it Given the class size of 50 children, this task created access merely to 10 children It was a common practice in most of teacher B’s and teacher C’s classroom observations that the teachers seemed to prefer the choice of game with limited number of children to pair work or group work where every student could take part.
When the children slapped the wrong word or did bad spelling, she asked questions and gave support.
When teacher C noticed the two children were not performing well enough, she posed questions to identify the areas of their weakness She checked if they could realize the word, and its meaning Later, she directly asked about the reason behind their failure.
Asking this type of questions helped both the two children and other children as well, since they could avoid the potential failure (i.e., remember the wrong position of the pictures, confuse between similar ones)
Having recognized the common mistake when spelling the ending ‘er’, teacher C took it as a teachable
80 asked the rest of the class for help A student | moment She chose two words the children had learnt, volunteered to give the right answer As this | focusing on the letter missing in the two words It is a was the last turn of the game, teacher C sent | good way to link what the children have learnt, making the children back to their seats, writing on | the new learning memorable to children However, the board two words ‘Pet_r’ and ‘lat_r’ She | teacher C should have utilized the word “ruler” in this asked the class what letter to be filled in | exercise to reinforce S10’s spelling of the word with: ‘o’ or ‘e’ The majority of children | “eraser”. raised their hands and say ‘e’.
The description above illustrates that a typical procedure of the teachers’ daily assessment was selecting a sample of student work to monitor and track the ongoing progress of those students during a learning task in order to reveal their acquisition of an identified skill and sub-skills required in that learning task, from that knowledge the teacher could inform and adapt instruction.
Scenario 3.2.1.1.2 Conferencing with the individual as the result of checking a sample of student work
After monitoring several students to do the class work, teacher D noticed that while most of the students were doing the task easily, there was a student not doing the exercise, struggling with the task Teacher D saw the need to offer some help She recognized the child stuck in Task 2 (Her worksheet had 3 tasks).
1 T: Nao, con nhìn vào bai tập số 2, nhiệm vụ của dau bài là gi? (Look at task 2 Read the instruction ) 2 S: Ghi từ theo 2 cột a (Write the words in 2 columns)
3 T: Theo con, tai sao lại có 2 cột? (Why 2 columns?)
4 §: Con không biết Vì sao ạ? (7 don’t know) 5 TT: Vì có 2 chủ điểm từ Con có nhớ các từ này không? Day là các từ con học từ Học kỳ Ico.
Theo con 2 chủ điểm là gì nào? (Because of two topics Do you remember the words? You learned all of them in Term 1 What’re the two topics?)
6 S: Có phải là hành động không a? (Js that action?)
7, TT: Cô gợi ý nhé Một chủ đề là các mệnh lệnh trong lớp học Ví dụ như Stand up Con có tìm được các từ còn lại thuộc chủ đề này không? (The hint is one topic about classroom commands For example, Stand up Can you find the rest in this topic?) 8 S: Có phải là Sit down không a? (/s that Sit down?)
9 T: Đúng rồi, con tìm thêm các từ còn lại đi Cô sẽ quay lại ngay (That’s right Find all the rest, please I'll come back in a minute)
1ứ T: Con đó viết cỏc từ vào cột 1 rồi a? Đỳng rồi Vậy cỏc từ cũn lại là chủ đề gỡ? (Wow, you ve filled in column 1 already All correct What about topic 2? What is it?)
11 S: Các hoạt động trong giờ ra choi a (Activities during break time)
2 T: Đúng rồi Con viết vad cột 2 di (Very good Just write them in column 2)
Teachers’ marking/grading 0
Marking is seen as a common assessment procedure employed by every teacher during their teaching and assessing process Marking can range from putting a cross or tick on student work in a workbook, assigning a mark for student boardwork, to gauging a level with a mark in a class test (Gipps et al, 2000) Marking is a procedure in which teachers analyze student
83 work as well as reflect upon their instruction (Nicholls, 2004) For example, when students repeatedly make the same mistakes, teachers have to reflect upon both their teaching and student learning in order to work out why they have not achieved what they are supposed to.
The emerging themes from the marking include (1) marking based on intuition rather than on criteria/learning objectives, (2) marking as tracking of student learning in a single activity with the primary purpose of encouragement and management rather than identifying weaknesses and strengths, and (3) marking without the underlying construct aligning with the expected learning outcomes The following scenarios depict the teachers’ practices:
Scenario 3.2.1.2.1 Marking based on intuition rather than on criteria/learning objectives
Table 3.3: Marking based on intuition
Teacher B divided the board into four columns She nominated 4 children to write the sentences from exercise 3 in student’s workbook The children were allowed to bring the workbook with them The children then copied the sentence (previously written in the workbook) onto the board Teacher B, while observing the four children, asked other children to give answers for exercise 4 in student’s workbook.
When noticing the four children had just finished their writing, she stopped checking the answer with whole class and turned to the board work She asked some children to give comments As the four sentences were all correct, there was not much for her to give feedback, except giving mark
If looking at what the children actually did to get mark 10 (highest mark), one can find that all the things the four children had to do were copying the sentence from the workbook to the board The teacher did not know if the children had done the exercise themselves or with other’s help She did not query further for the reasons behind their correct sentence, either Moreover, her observation of student work was merely for the purpose of checking if they had finished the sentence or not.
Eventually, the value of the task was merely the display of the correct sentences for other children to compare with theirs.
When asked about the evidence of learning she collected from the task, she seemed relatively pleased with what the children had done: “They are quite good, all the answers are correct I’ve had a quick look at some work from some children sitting at the front row, they have right answers too, and the handwriting is really neat.” (SR.B.U5L2.1)
As has been presented, this assessment task followed by the teacher’s marking is seen as a typical assessment practices of teachers’ in classroom-based approach First, due to large class
84 size, teachers find it impossible to check all children’s work However, teachers find themselves irresponsible if they fail to monitor the student learning Then, calling some students to do the boardwork is a time-saver It serves two purposes: (1) to check the work of the students who are called upon; and (ii) to show the remainders how to check and modify their work This practice supports the findings found in Le Van Canh (2012) that “whole-class corrective feedback helped to prompt pupils’ errors because whole-class corrective feedback created an opportunity for the pupils to compare their responses, thereby setting a barrier of errors” (p 190).
Second, teachers’ marking seems to be managerial, intuitive and spontaneous The observed teachers seldom set a rubric or criteria for their assigning a mark Moreover, they rarely paid enough attention to both validity and reliability of the task As in this assessment task, teacher B did not care if the children did the work (in their notebooks) by themselves or not Due to this problem, the mark did not tell much about the student language competence as the task could not measure what it was purported to measure In case of cheating, the mark did not depict the true competence of the learner as well.
Scenario 3.2.1.2.2 Marking as tracking of student learning in a single activity with the purpose of encouragement and/or management
Table 3.4: Marking for managerial purpose
Lesson objectives: Introducing classroom objects & expressing classroom commands By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to remember how to give commands; read and write the sentences about classroom objects.
Aim of the task: to consolidate the language learnt: describing school objects (This is It’s small); giving command (Close your book); asking for permission (May I go out); vocabulary: school objects Task focus: written grammatical exercise focusing on the language points as above Input: None
Task demand: Ss were required to do 2 exercises Exercise 1 required children to unscramble the words of school objects: irlbyra, smoarocls, hslooc, okob, lerur Exercise 2 asked children to reorder the words to make a complete sentence 1 my/this /classroom/is 2 your/close/notebook 3. big/is/school/my 4 open/may/the/window/I.
Task support: Teacher checked if the children understood the requirement.
Required response: written response Criteria to assess student response: correct spelling of words, correct order of the sentence
Teacher C gave the children the handouts and asked them to write their names on top of the piece of paper (half of A4 paper) She then reminded them that she was going to collect the paper back for marking so that the children were more careful with their writing.
She was sitting at her desk, looking around the classroom to check if all children are on task.
Some children were very fast Three managed to do the exercises in less than five minutes These three children then submitted their paper to teacher C She started marking the paper on spot One of the children got mark 10 The other had to get the paper back for improvement (without a mark nor comments, teacher C just warned her to check her paper carefully) The bell rang when teacher C was in the middle of marking the third student’s paper She asked the monitor to collect the paper for her marking later, standing up and saying goodbye to the class.
This kind of task seemed to be the common practice in her English lessons, becoming the routines for children, therefore, teacher C had to neither explain nor demonstrate how to do the exercises.
This kind of task looked like a mini class test where children got neither scaffolding nor support from teacher and peers.
Approach and focus Of asSeSSMEMt ô5 61 23 v9 HH nh nh rờp 89 1 Approach and focus of assessment as reflected in the teachers’ lesson plans
3.2.2.1 Approach and focus of assessment as reflected in the teachers’ lesson plans
This section elaborates the relationship between curriculum, syllabus, teaching, learning and assessment In this relationship, teacher’ lesson plans represent what and how much the teacher wants the students to learn as well as to be assessed as specified in the curriculum In other words, lesson plans seem to combine essential ingredients for both the teaching and assessment procedures However, relatively little information on assessment was explicitly specified in the target teachers’ lesson plans because all the teachers considered most of their activities as mere learning activities Thus, while the lesson plans did not state any direct information on assessments, they provided with the aims, the objectives, the focus, the approach and the procedures of the learning activities, which were regarded as potential assessment opportunities Specifically, the purpose, the focus, the approach and the procedure of the whole lesson or of every single learning/assessment activity were reflected in the lesson
89 plans through the acts of the teachers’ setting learning goals, sequencing the activities in order for the students to achieve the expected learning goals and assessing/measuring if the students attained/achieved such goals.
The findings were grounded from the analysis of the lesson plans used by (1) three teachers B, C and D in Stage 2, which amount to 15 lesson plans (Appendix 18), and by (2) eight teachers (including teacher B, C and D) in Stage 3 with 24 lesson plans (Appendix 18) Where possible, the discussions were also complemented by the findings from other sources such as interviews and classroom observations.
When thoroughly examining the ways the eight teachers specified learning objectives, there arose some issues Although the eight teachers varied from one another in the way they planned their lessons, almost all of them seemed to be unspecific and undemanding in the act of setting goals, predicting the learning outcomes For example in lesson 3 Unit 2 (Let’s Learn English, book 2, Grade 4), teacher B2 stated the objectives as ‘By the end of the lesson, SS will be able to talk about dates; name days/dates/ months; ask and answer about birthday; identify when someone was born’ This shows that she included both the aim of the whole unit and the aim of the lesson In the stimulated recall, when asked about the learning objectives she stated for the lesson and how much of the objectives she thought her students achieved after the lesson, teacher B2 explained as follows:
‘I mentioned both aims of the lesson and aims of the unit in order to see the place of this lesson in the whole unit In this lesson, I just want the students to practise speaking in order for them to remember the question and answer with the 12 months I think the students have achieved the goals for this lesson because they can talk to one another, using the question and answer No, in this lesson they have to say out, they don’t have to write, but they have to do their workbook as homework that will be checked in the next lesson ’ (SR.B2.U2L3)
In another lesson (U9LI, Stage 2), teacher C stated the aim as “Telling the name of the rooms in the house, introducing the rooms in the house”; the objectives as “by the end of the lesson the children will be able to remember the name of the rooms in the house; and read, talk and write the sentences about the house” (h) Nevertheless, in her lesson plan and even in her actual lesson, teacher C did not organize any reading and writing activities Besides, she did not mention the level of content and context, nor indicated level of cognitive process and other differences among children which might affect the outcome Explaining this mismatch, teacher C answered:
“by reading and writing, I mean the students have to read the dialogue in the textbook, read the sentence patterns on the board and then they have to write the patterns on their notebooks .
You see, we can’t expect much for a 40 - minute period Of course, the students have achieved the objectives, most of them exceed the objectives, I think.’ (SR.C.U9L1)
When asked what grounds the teachers based themselves on in order to set learning goals, they all answered that the aims, objectives and learning goals were all speculated in the curriculum/syllabus embodied in their teacher’s guide book Further elicitation revealed that most of the time teachers merely copied the aims from the guide book onto their lesson plans under the heading ‘objectives’ In most lessons, the teaching aims were not divided into measurable and achievable steps needed in order for particular learners in a specific context to achieve.
In the lesson plans there was no evidence of teacher identifying student prior knowledge, nor of designing activities so as to make student learning visible Thus, it is questionable whether the teachers could achieve the goal of the lesson with their general aims.
Regarding the hierarchy of goal in some lesson plans, the teachers attempted to include the thinking levels Nevertheless, such attempts were attached to low level of thinking- that is remember while the knowledge set at factual Such objectives as ‘by the end of the lesson, children will be able to remember how to give commands’ or ‘by the end of the lesson children will be able to remember the knowledge which they’ve learnt such as the way to introduce about family, weather, pets and toys, using “This/That is my mother”, “How’s the weather today? — It’s sunny.”, “I have a/one cat/ two ships.” and practice 4 skills” were found in a number of lesson plans designed by the teachers B, C and D in Stage 2 (Appendix 18) It is argued that if communicative purpose is the ultimate goal of teaching and learning English at primary level, the thinking level should be aimed at apply or use or at least reproduce the sentence patterns in meaningful contexts or in personalized activities where learners are provided with opportunities to link what they have learned with their own lived experience.
Drawn from informal interviews and stimulated recalls, it turns out that in practice the act of setting learning goals and measuring the outcomes was much more complicated than stated in theory The first reason is that deciding the starting points of a lesson, from which teachers identify the learning aspects students need to acquire in order to achieve the goals is not so easy, especially in the context of a booming market for young learners of English where a majority of grade 3 students more or less have had extra English lessons before or during their formal learning English at school The second reason is that teachers solely base their decisions on the aims and objectives set out in the syllabus or in teacher’s guide book They therefore hardly succeed in leading students to their desired learning goals because, as stated by Cameron (2001), “learning goals are objectives or intended learning for particular learners working on particular tasks, made specific from the general learning aims of book or syllabus”
(p 28) Thus, the drive to cover the curriculum and to comply with the specified teaching
91 schedules required the teachers to stop looking at the particularity in their own classrooms As such, there were such lessons as Lesson 2 Unit 9 by teacher C1 where in her warm-up activity she found out that her students mastered a wide range of job vocabulary, but she continued with her simple planned activities from the textbook which failed to build up from her student prior knowledge of the topic The third reason is that defining the action verbs students have to do in order to demonstrate their understanding and acquisition of a skill, sub-skill or knowledge requires teachers to possess good command of assessment plus experience in the field — this was observed as less likely to happen in primary education in Vietnam.
In spite of the teachers’ ambiguity in specifying objectives, in relation to selecting, sequencing learning activities, and organizing support, the activities in all 15 lesson plans in Stage 2 and most activities in the 24 lesson plans in Stage 3 appeared on a surface to be motivational, which were sequenced from easy to more difficult, from more teacher-controlled to less controlled, from collaborative to individual (Appendix 18) All lesson plans followed a three- reinforcing-component format, in which the lead-in activity introduced the context to the lesson, the presentation and practice stages comprised the main learning activities, and finally, the consolidation stage reviewed the learning that had occurred in the lesson Moreover, the activities were varied to support different learning styles, ranging from linguistic to kinesthetic, musical, and so on Game-like activities were also a common feature among the lesson plans (Appendix 18).
However, when taking a deeper analysis, there were problems related to the focus of assessments First, although each lesson started with a warm-up activity with the purpose to revise the previous lesson, there still lacked evidence of the link between what was to be learned with what had been learned (except for the case of teacher B2) The teachers seemed to mechanically follow a revision of the latest taught lesson rather than sought for the natural and appropriate connection For example, in a lesson by teacher C in Stage 2, the warm-up activity reviewed the way how to ask about the other’s age whereas the new input was introducing rooms in a house Clearly, this partly resulted from the way materials are organized in the textbook However, if the teachers deeply understood the learning process, they could adapt and design activities to utilize student prior knowledge, creating smooth links for information to be retained It seems that in the 39 lesson plans, the teachers failed to identify what the children had already known, therefore, without such knowledge, could not extend student current knowledge and understanding.
Second, as a consequence of unobservable, unmeasurable objectives, most activities did not indicate the learning experience children received or the extent to which the learning outcome
92 was achieved For example, in one lesson (teacher C, Stage 2, Unit 6 lesson 4, Appendix 18) the aim was to present and practice the pattern “This is ” with five classroom items, in which three out of the four main learning activities dealt with the way to teach vocabulary, separately from the pattern While these three activities all focused on recognizing the meaning and sound of the five classroom items, the activity in the consolidation stage required children to write sentences introducing the classroom items Likewise, a large number of summary activities in the form of game focused merely on vocabulary or a large number of sentence pattern activities focused merely on pronunciation.
Agents of assessment and assessment SfTAf€ỉ1€S .- - c6 2k ssesirsrsree 102 1 Sharing learning goals and information on assessment with students
This section describes the observed teachers’ assessment strategies and the roles of both teacher and students in their CA practices in alignment with the theoretical framework presented in Chaper 1 Thus, the agents and strategies of assessment are discussed in four
102 areas: (1) sharing learning goals and information on assessment with students; (2) eliciting evidence of student learning; (3) giving feedback; and (4) extending student learning This section also includes the teachers’ justifications for their assessment acts as well as evidence of student learning traced back from the lesson recordings and from other artefacts like student notebooks, workbooks and worksheets The data presented in this section were based on the teachers’ assessment artefacts, interviews, observations, and their responses in both the stimulated recalls and other informal conversations.
3.2.3.1 Sharing learning goals and information on assessment with students
As mentioned in section 1.3.6, sharing the learning goals and the scoring criteria in every learning and assessment task is essential in making students focused on their learning goals; therefore, the students are more likely to achieve such goals Research (Black & William, 1998a/b; Brookhart, 2008; Harris, 2007; McKay, 2006; McMillan, 2003, 2010; Lambert &
Lines, 2000; Sadler, 1989) show that once the learning objectives and the criteria for success are well expressed, students can easily visualize what they are supposed to do, especially with teacher modelling.
Among the 39 observed lessons, there were four activities conducted by teachers D, B and C were evident in setting and sharing criteria for success.
Activity 5 Lesson 2 Unit 10 (Stage 2) by teacher D is an example of this assessment strategy.
01 T: Look at this picture Where is it? Look at the name of the city here.
02 Ss: Ho Chi Minh city 03 T: That’s right So I’ll write the question here What should I write? You, please 04 S28: How’s the weather?
05 T: Good And the city? Ask about the weather in the city Who can?
06 S29: How’s the weather in Ho Chi Minh city?
07 T: Very good And the answer? Who knows? Look at the picture Is it rainy?
08 S30: No It’s sunny 09 T: That’s right Look at this The sun’s here It’s shining And I'll write here Help me, whole class.
11 T: Very good And I’ll put a full stop here Cô viết dấu chấm cuối câu trả lời But here, it’s a question mark Question mark for the question Dấu chấm hỏi sau câu hỏi Well, let’s check Chữ này có viết hoa không nhỉ? Is it a capital letter? (points to Ho Chi Minh city) and here and here (points to H and I) Ding réi, phai viét hoa tén thanh phé va chữ dau tiên của mỗi câu (Yes, capital letters for the first word and the name of the
12 T: Now, can you write the question and answer for the picture 5 minutes Go.
13 Ok, time’s up You, two change the pictures Give the picture to your partner Ok V, read the question in the picture, please 14 S23: How’s the weather in Hue?
15 T: Show the picture to class, please Is it right?
17 Ss: Yes 18 T: Is it right? Are you sure? Read it carefully Are all the words correct? Look at the board Check all the words Are they correct?
19 S23: Yes, all correct Ca dau chấm hỏi với lại may chữ nay đều viết hoa đúng hết a.
(And the question mark, and these words in capital letters too) 20 T: Ok Yes, a cloud here And ‘It’s cloudy’ Very good If all correct, give your partner a smiley face Draw it here Like this Are you ready? Now, check your friend’s picture.
In this activity teacher D gave an example of how to write a short dialogue for a weather picture She demonstrated through the process, using questions to elicit responses from the students At the same time, she drew students’ attention to important steps By so doing, she sent an implicit message to the students about a good piece of work: the students were required to look carefully at the name of the city and the weather symbol in order to write the question and answer; there should be a question mark for the question and a full stop for the answer; and all the first letters of the question and answer and the name of the city must be written in capital letters.
After setting time limit for the writing, teacher D asked children to swap the pictures in order to check if the caption accurately described the picture She provided scaffolding to the children to check if the caption followed the correct pattern, if all the words had exact spelling; if the question ended with a question mark and the reply ended with a full stop; if the proper name for the place, the first letter in the question/ the reply were written in capital; and if their peer’s handwriting was neat She asked the children to draw a smiley face on their peer’s work if all the criteria were met Obviously, when setting criteria like this, teacher D could guide the students to do the feedback for themselves in the peer editing.
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether too much support like this reduces the challenge of the task, thereby demotivates better students As such, teachers need to observe student learning so as to gradually remove support when necessary.
To a lesser extent, teacher B also expressed her expectation when she wanted the students to practise reading aloud the lyrics for the song in Unit 13 lesson 2 (Stage 3): ‘Dung rồi Phải cố gang đọc, chú ý vào trọng âm Cô đánh dấu trên bảng, không được đọc é a đâu day.’ (You should pay attention to the stress of the word and the rhythm of the sentence as I marked on the board Don’t stretch your voice, Ok?) (CO.B.U13L2.ix, Stage 3)
Similarly, when introducing the rule of a game in Unit 14 Lesson 3 (Stage 3) teacher C set the criteria for the success as follows:
21 T: Do you want to play a game? Group 1, you’re Cat group, Group 2, dog Group 3
Monkey “ cats say ?”, “dogs say ?” , “monkeys say ?” Ok Trước tiên mỗi đội sẽ được tặng một ngôi sao ngoan (First of all, each group is granted with one star for your good behaviour) One star for you! Nếu nhóm nao hư thì ngôi sao ngoan sẽ bién mat luôn (If you’re disruptive, the star’s gone) OK Are you ready? What is this? It’s a ball I can stand here When I say one preposition Khi cô nói 1 giới từ chi dia điểm, 1 bạn của nhóm sẽ đứng ở vị trí trước bảng Ví dụ khi cô nói là “on”, bạn sẽ ném quả bóng vào vị trí “on” Như vậy là nhóm đó sẽ được ngôi sao Nếu giả sử cô đọc “on” mà bạn ném vào từ khác có được ngôi sao nữa không? Are you ready?(When I say out a preposition, one member of your group is going to stand here For example, when I say ‘ON’, you throw the sticky ball on the position of the word ‘ON’ on the board You'll gain one star If I say ‘ON’, you throw the sticky ball on the position of other word, can you earn a star?)
23 T: Con thêm 1 điều kiện nữa: khi ban đã ném vào đúng vị trí rồi, bạn đặt được câu là
“Tt’s on the table” bạn sẽ được thêm 1 ngôi sao Con nếu chỉ ném được vào vị trí mà không đặt được câu thì không được thêm 1 ngôi sao nữa Ready ? 1 2 3 (Another condition, once you ve thrown the ball onto the correct preposition, you have to make a sentence with that preposition For example, ‘It’s on the table In that case, you'll gain another star If you just throw the ball onto the correct preposition but you can’t make a sentence, you can’t earn the extra star.)
In this activity, the students seemed to understand what they were supposed to do (e.g., the position they stood at; the way they threw the sticky ball; the sentence they had to make) or how many points (i.e., no star, one star or two stars for each turn) they could earn based on their performance Sharing the criteria like this was thought as a must, so that the game could be conducted.
Thus, giving an example of how an expected response or a piece of work looks like was evident in several activities observed However, this technique was not used for sharing the
105 objectives of the whole lesson As analyzed, this technique was within the reach of the teachers if they cared for However, as observed, the teachers rarely analyzed the steps needed for the students to achieve the learning goals It was felt that such technique seemed to be neglected in their assessment practices.
Relationship between teachers’ beliefs, practices and contextual constraints
This part presents the findings generated from the interviews to individuals (Appendix 13) by the end of Stage 3 The primary purpose of this interview was to confirm the findings for the questions one and two generated from earlier interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recalls The secondary purpose was to elicit the contextual constraints and tensions preventing the teachers’ beliefs enacted in their actual practices This part, therefore, comprises two sections Section 3.3.1 discusses the extent to which the teachers’ beliefs and practices were parallel Section 3.3.2 examines the context constraints and the regulations from the authorities that influenced the teachers’ beliefs and practices.
3.3.1 Consistencies and discrepancies between teachers’ beliefs and practices
In general, answers from the teachers helped confirm most of the findings, including the findings from the survey questionnaire in Stage 1 One reason for such a relatively high percentage of confirmed data is that the individual interview was conducted after three stages of collecting data; therefore, the teachers were all aware of the fact that what they said they did can be verified by the previous evidences.
In part 1, the eight teachers were asked to recall the title and the main contents of the training they had attended Noticeably, teacher D was the one who received most training in both fields
126 of teaching English to young learners and assessment Among her most reputative training there were such courses as a 350 hour TEYL (Teaching English to Young Language Learners) course by the British Council (BC), a three-month TEYL online course by the Embassy of the USA, 5-day Hornby School course on assessing young language learners in classroom-based contexts Alongside such long courses, she also attended a number of short training workshops provided by international publishers like OUP, Cengage Learning Inc., MacMillan Publishers and the Vietnamese EPH Teacher C also took part in the 350 hour TEYL course by BC and short training workshops provided by the international publishers (mentioned above) and the EPH Teachers B attended five short training workshops by BC and by international publishers on TEYL and assessment The remaining teachers mainly attended the workshops organized by the DoET and by international publishers on TEYL Teachers Cl and C2 received a two- credit course on assessing lower secondary students as part of their pre-service course All the teachers except for teachers B, C1 and C2 had attended the three-month courses by the HNUE on language proficiency and teaching methodology for primary English teachers It was confirmed that most knowledge about teaching and assessing young learners was gained through in-service training and learning from colleagues.
Part 2 of the structured interview sought for teachers’ beliefs related to planning continuous assessment, usefulness of assessment, assessment approach, feedback, scaffolding, revealing student learning and using assessment results for teachable moment Table 3.5 below presents the details of the findings.
Table 3.5 Characteristics of CA practices employed by the eight teachers
CHARACTERISTICS Question | B Bl B2 C Cl C2 D DI
Setting objectives/ Planning 1 C;2; | C31; | Bs 1; |C;3; | C;2; |C;3; |C;2; | B31; assessment vvv |vv x v X vvv |vv
Assessment | Content 2, B+; C;3; |C;2; |C;3; |C;3; |B;2; |C;2; |B;2; focus 3,17,22 2; v v v v v vv vv vvv
Methods vvv |v 3; vv |vvv |2; vv |vv vvv vvv
When to X vv |vv |vv |vv |vv |vv |vvv give After 14 C;3; | C52; |C;2; | C53; |C;2; | C52; |C;2; |C;2; feedback vv vv VV v Vv Vv vv
After a period 24 A; 2; | B;2; | B;3; | A;3; | B;2; | B;2; | A;2; | B; 2; of time vv |vv¥v |x ⁄ v v ẻ|vv |v
Scaffolding, correcting vv vv vv v vv vv vvv | vv
Assessment Superficial 7 B;2; | A;2; | Aj; 1; | C33; | B;2; | A; 1; |C;3; | C33; strategies/ vv Vv Vv vvv | Vv Vv VVvV |vvv
Reveal student | Trustworthy | 21 C;3; | B;2; | C;3; | A; 1; | B;2; | C;3; | A; 1; | Aj 1; learning vv Vv Vv Vv vv vvv |vv Vv
Extending student learning vvv |v x vv vv X vv vv
Note: Vv: confirmed: consistent with findings from earlier interviews and findings from classroom observation vv: partly confirmed: consistent with findings from classroom observation : partly confirmed: consistent with findings from earlier interviews x: unconfirmed: unconsistent with findings from earlier interviews and findings from classroom observation
A: Disvalued; B: Not highly appreciated; C: Highly appreciated 1: Ignored; 2: Sometimes Implemented; 3 Regularly implemented
Regarding planning, teachers B, BI, Cl and D claimed they highly appreciated the act of planning their continuous assessment; however they could not manage to do so regularly.
Reasons for this mismatch were reported to be time constraints When asked if they had the time, what they would include in their plans for continuous assessment, all the teachers, except
128 for teacher D, merely mentioned the format of their assessment Teacher D, unlike the other three, mentioned contents, format and especially the types of feedback she would like to use in the assessment This was confirmed by the evidences in their lesson plans Meanwhile, teachers C and C2 claimed they regularly planned assessment in their lesson plans but such claims were not evident in their lesson plans possessed by me Teacher D1 justified her disvalue of the planning as follows:
‘ frankly speaking, once I have taught the same contents in a number of classes, I find no need to plan the lesson, including the assessment All just come from my mind ’ (7I.D1 15)
Teacher B2 explained her choice as:
‘I do the lesson planning, but assessment is different I can’t expect what’ll happen It depends on the student’s response or on their work in general, then I can decide what assessment I’m going to use for them And it also depends on the level I don’t think I should give them long tests Then for short tests, I don’t have to plan because these tests are just exercises in my supplementary book’ (I7.B2.8) In this sense, she demonstrated a spontaneous and intuitive manner when assessing student learning.
Regarding the extent to which their assessment covers the content and reflects the communicative language ability construct, half of the teachers claimed that their assessments achieved such goal This was partly confirmed and verified by their responses in the previous survey questionnaire or focus-group interview or stimulated recalls However, test evaluation and data analysis in classroom observations were not parallel with their claims Further eliciting and probing showed that most of the teachers thought their tests with dialogues and pictures and their motivational assessment activities embedded in instruction were indicators of assessing language for communicative purposes:
‘I created very motivational conditions for the children to take part in communication I mean children communicate when they play the game in the production stage For example, on the screen when they see a picture of a man and a clock telling a certain time, one team has to make the question: Does he get up at 9.00? and the other team has to quickly answer Yes or No, depending on the cross or tick at the clock’ (1I.B1.34)
“Yes, by the end of each lesson I always ask the children to apply what they’ve learned An example is a ‘Lucky star’ game when I divide the class into four teams I’ve got two piles of paper slips In one pile there are slips with a time phrase on each of it, like tomorrow, next week, next month In the other pile there are slips with table tennis or Harry Porter or swimming written on them In each pile there is one slip with one star Two members from each team have to pick up two slips If they pick up the star, their team gains one point without doing anything If not, the team has to ask and answer with the words on the slips They ask and answer like: ‘What’re you going to do next month? I’m going to play table tennis’ That’s when they have to apply what they’ve learned to interact, to communicate Yes, all of the questions and answers are different from the textbook They don’t just repeat, they have to apply what they’ve learned to speak.’ (1I.B2.57)
‘All the tasks in the speaking test are child-friendly with lots of colourful pictures In part 1 the children have to read aloud a passage in order for us to check their pronunciation In part two,
129 they listen to the teacher and point to the corresponding objects in the picture In part three, they are asked to make a question and an answer from the picture cue And finally, they look at 2 pictures and answer two questions Yes, the questions are already on the test paper
Yes, one student at a time, about 5 minutes per student Of course, oral interaction for communicative purpose, so listening and speaking but because they don’t have to say much, then we need to check their reading aloud’ (1I.C7.79)
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The purpose of this part is to summarize and discuss main findings related to the research questions Theoretically framed by the six components of assessment, the study managed to tackle the complex phenomenon of the target teachers’ CA practices through an in-depth investigation With such tools as observation, fieldnotes, audio/video recording, document analysis and interview, the emerging themes were identified and analyzed which answered the three research questions.
RQ1: How is classroom assessment practised by the EFL teachers in the three primary schools?
In regard to the CA practices, this study has explored the components of CA, namely the purpose, the assessment approach/methods, the focus, the agents, the procedures of continuous, periodic and final assessments, and the assessment strategies employed by the researched teachers.
The main purpose of continuous assessment was for teaching and learning modification, with benefits for teaching outweighing benefits for student learning Assessment approach resembled teaching/learning activities with a tendency to break down the language into smaller parts of vocabulary, sentence patterns and phonics Assessment procedure followed the sequence of learning activities and mini class tests In this procedure, evidence of student learning was mainly collected in teacher observation and marking The focus of continuous assessment was placed on student linguistic competence revealed mainly in written work or in oral interactions which merely involved lower-order thinking As such, this focus was not aimed at stretching or deepening student learning.
The dual purpose of periodic assessment was for teaching and learning and for school managerial issues Assessment approach was heavily influenced by Behaviourism The focus of periodic assessment was placed on student linguistic competences, especially on writing and reading (and listening in school C) Contents of the tests were narrowed into two or three Units The main purpose of the final assessment was to measure student achievement after the
138 whole academic year for managerial issues (for accountability purpose even when the results of English subject are not counted in grading student overall academic achievement) The focus of the final assessment was placed on student linguistic competences in four macro skills.
Although the teachers were different in degree, they all showed effective assessment strategies Most teachers were successful in eliciting student knowledge and understanding, thereby were able to tap into their learning process in order to provide feedback accordingly.
Deep probing of student understanding by the teachers was thought to be able to uncover aspects of student thinking that might not be readily apparent This is also perceived as an important factor in assessment practices (Bell and Cowie, 2001; Rea-Dickins, 2001; Sadler, 1989) In some lessons during continuous assessments, teacher’s introduction of the assessment task and setting criteria (teacher D) was also evident This was thought to be a good indicator of effective classroom assessment (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Harris, 2007;
Torrance and Pryor, 1998) Another indicator of good practice in the teachers’ CA was the way they used assessment information for learning and teaching modification All the teachers revealed that information from assessments helped them diagnose problems and strengths the students had in a particular content area, thereby, they could reflect and replan the lessons to solve the problems.
In spite of several indicators of good practice, the implementation of the teachers’ assessments was heavily influenced by traditional methods The drawback of such methods lied in a managerial and superficial procedure of revealing and collecting evidence of student learning, which unlikely reflected the underlying construct of communicative language ability assessed in the primary English classrooms As a result, the focus of continuous assessment was placed either on pieces of language like vocabulary or on memorisation of sentence patterns whereas the focus of periodic and final assessments was on discrete-point items mainly in written English, with a paucity of oral assessment Although the inclusion of oral assessment in the final assessment was a significant attempt to tap into the communicative aspect of language learning and teaching, the actual implementation of such assessment was thought to be an oral version of a written test In this sense, what the students were required to do was to report what they had written/noted down in their group work (school B) or to read aloud and answer the reading comprehension questions (school C) Definitely, such focus of assessment was less likeky to uncover or support communicative language ability in students This, to large extent, also prevented effective assessment strategies employed by the teachers from activating the whole assessment process.
RQ2: To what extent are the teachers’ classroom assessment practices shaped by their beliefs?
Generally speaking, the CA practices conducted by the target teachers were guided by both the curriculum guidelines and the official assessment documents issued by the MOET; and in areas where the documents lacked specific regulations, the school culture, the directives of the specialized groups and the teachers’ beliefs helped shape the way they conducted their practices.
Also, the findings in three stages of this study demonstrated that the teachers’ beliefs about children learning, about their subject teaching and about assessment played a crucial role in their implementation of both regulations stipulated in the official documents and their own teaching and assessment ideas.
Generally speaking, the researched teachers’ CA practices reflected their beliefs in student learning, subject teaching and six components of assessment.
In relation to teachers’ beliefs about children learning, it was found that the experienced teachers who had received sufficient training on TEYL and assessment like teachers C and D demonstrated better understanding of conditions for language learning and children characteristics as language learners than the remaining teachers Nevertheless, all the teachers showed limited knowledge on the actual process of children language acquisition Their teaching methods, as a result, clearly reflected their beliefs of children learning with an explicit focus on repetition, memorisation of separated units of language like vocabulary, pronunciation and sentence patterns.
On the surface, the teaching methods seemed to follow bottom-up approach, which start from separated units of language However, these methods did not start from the smallest units of language — phonemes and graphems — as bottom-up approach suggests As such, a distinctive feature of teaching children how to read and write was completely neglected In most observed lessons, whenever children mispronounced a word or a phrase, the teacher asked them to repeat the correct form without teaching them how to produce the sounds properly In this sense, the relationship between the sounds and the letters to produce the pronunciation or the spelling of the words was rarely referred to, which made those who started learning English found it difficult to remember the pronunciation and spelling of most of the words in their textbook As a result, those average children, who had yet learned the contents of the
140 curriculum in advance, hardly read and wrote a word in their textbook in just a few days after class.
The teaching methods did not completely follow the top-down approach, which starts from the context, the function, the comprehension and the communicative purpose of language.
Although the teachers tried to set contexts for the sentence patterns and vocabulary to be introduced, they were less likely to design activities toward communication Truly, it was difficult for the teachers to do so because English was taught to children as a subject to learn in the curriculum rather than as a means of communication in their real life Actually, the children themselves hardly ever use English in their real life Then, for most of the children, English classes became their single environment for their interactions As such, without practices in simulations, children found it hard to understand the function and the communicative purpose of their taught sentence patterns Thus, with such a focus on teaching, learning and assessment, the teachers unlikely deepened or stretched student learning.
Regarding the teachers’ beliefs about assessment, they tended to prefer assessment methods prescribed by Behaviourism, characterized by its teacher-centeredness, surface learning and discrete-point assessment respectively (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Hughes, 2003).