An investigation into the language assessment competence of pre service english teachers at a foreign language teacher training institution in vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT COMPETENCE OF PRESERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS AT A FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER TRAINING INSTITUTION IN VIETNAM Supervisor: Dương Thu Mai (Ph.D.) Student: Nguyễn Thị Liên Hương Student number: 16040590 Course: QH2016.F1.E2 HANOI – 2020 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU NĂNG LỰC KIỂM TRA ĐÁNH GIÁ CỦA SINH VIÊN SƯ PHẠM TẠI MỘT CƠ SỞ ĐÀO TẠO GIÁO VIÊN NGOẠI NGỮ Ở VIỆT NAM Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Dương Thu Mai (Ph.D.) Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Liên Hương MSSV: 16040590 Khóa: QH2016.F1.E2 HÀ NỘI – 2020 Signature of Approval: _ Supervisor’s Comments & Suggestions _ _ _ _ _ ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, class QH2016.F1.E2, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature _ Date _ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Had it not been for the help of others, I would not have been able to completed this dissertation Therefore, I would like to take this chance to show my deepest appreciation to all the help that I received First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Duong Thu Mai, for her professional guidance, constructive advices, tolerance and encouragement Without her invaluable helps and feedbacks, this graduation paper could not have been completed Secondly, I would like to express my special thanks to the lecturers of the course “Language Assessment” and 225 senior teacher trainees who have taken the course at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam University – Hanoi for their enthusiastic participation in my research Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to all my family members and friends for having been staying closely by my side Their unwavering and whole-hearted supports have been the principle source of encouragements for me to overcome any challenges Hanoi, 2019 ii ABSTRACT Assessment is vital in the language teaching and learning process Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to acquire language assessment competences (LAC), which can be considered the knowledge and skills of collecting data about students’ achievement and utilizing the assessment process to develop not only teacher’s instruction but also students’ learning Although there exists a decent number of studies about assessment competences internationally, there has been little to no research investigating that of Vietnamese teachers, especially the preservice ones As a result, this research aims at scrutinizing the perception of preservice teachers’ assessment literacy at a foreign language teacher training institution in Vietnam called “University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University Hanoi” The paper employs mixed methods design with questionnaires, educational text analysis and semi-structured interviews The findings revealed that the majority of participants felt more satisfied and confident with assessment sub-competences relating to assessment process However, this perception did not reflect the real practice Between assessing language components and assessing language skills, it was true that teacher trainees in ULIS believed that their practice of the former competency is more satisfactory Besides, they still faced numerous weaknesses as well as challenges during their practice of LAC both during and after the course “Assessment Literacy” Several implications have been made to teacher trainers and educators in ULIS and other university in Vietnam iii TABLE OF CONTENT ACCEPTANCE PAGE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv LIST OF TABLE vii LIST OF FIGURE viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of research problem & questions 1.2 Scope of the research 1.3 Significance 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Organization of the paper Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of the field of language assessment and the concept of assessment competence 2.1.1 Definitions of assessment: 2.1.2 An overview of current educational assessment context 2.1.3 The concept of assessment competence in the current context 2.1.4 Position of assessment competence in teacher competence in different countries 10 2.2 Conceptualization of language assessment competence through time 12 2.2.1 Definition of language assessment: 12 2.2.2 Definitions of assessment competence through time and its classification 12 2.2.3 Conceptualizing language assessment competence: what the subcompetences are? 13 2.3 Conceptualizations and components of foreign language assessment competence in Vietnam 17 iv 2.3.1 Sets of standards and regulations for conducting language assessment in primary and high school assessment 17 2.3.3 Language assessment courses for pre-service teachers in Vietnam 23 2.3.4 Language assessment course in University of Languages and International Studies 24 2.4 Related studies globally and locally 27 2.4.1 Related studies about foreign language assessment competence globally 27 2.4.2 Related studies about foreign language assessment competence in Vietnam 29 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 Settings of the study 31 3.2 Sampling and participants 32 3.2.1 Research population: 32 3.2.2 Research participants: 32 3.3 Data collection 33 3.3.1 Data collection instruments 33 3.3.2 Questionnaire 33 3.3.3 Educational text analysis 38 3.3.4 Semi-structure interview 41 3.3.5 Data collection process 42 3.4 The data analysis process 44 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 46 4.1 Research question 1: What is ULIS pre-service English teachers’ perception of their assessment competence? 46 4.1.1 Perception of senior English teacher trainees about their own LAC in terms of individual competences: 46 4.1.2 Perception of students about their own LAC in terms of groups of competences (modules) 52 4.2 Research question 2: How was their assessment competence revealed in the required assessment tasks in their course? 54 v 4.2.1 Oral presentation: 54 4.2.2 Evaluative essay 57 4.3 Research question 3: What are students’ perceptions of the future challenges for these student teachers in and after the course? 64 4.3.1 Challenges during the course: 64 4.3.2 Challenges during the internship and part-time jobs 66 4.3.3 Challenges in the future in-service practices 68 4.4 Discussions of findings: 70 4.4.1 Perception and real practice of pre-service teachers’ assessment competence 70 4.4.2 Perceptions of pre-service teachers about challenges in assessment practice during and after the course 71 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 73 5.1 Major findings of the study 73 5.2 Pedagogical implications 74 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 75 REFERENCES 76 APPENDIX 80 Appendix 1: The adopted and modified version for the course “Language Assessment” 80 Appendix 2: Semi-structured interview questions 86 Appendix 3: Checklist for marking the oral presentation 87 Appendix 4: Checklist for marking the evaluative essay 87 vi LIST OF TABLE Table 2a 13 Table 2b 15 Table 2c 19 Table 2d 26 Table 3a 34 Table 3b 35 Table 3c 39 Table 4a 47 Table 4b 49 Table 4c 52 Table 4d 55 Table 4e 58 Table 4f 60 Table 4g 61 Table 4h 69 vii experience, especially in class, differences in the difficulty of in-class exercises and the assignments and book format, lack of training and chances to practice in workplace and discrepancies between real practice and theory Though some of the challenges deemed to be subjective and can be tackled individually, the other need to be considered by teacher trainers and educators 5.2 Pedagogical implications From the findings of the research, several implications can be drawn to help pre-service teachers improve their own LAC and assist teacher trainers and educators in their training activities First of all, the findings reveal that many participants still struggled with a number of sub-competences in assessing This caused them a number of difficulties when completing the assignments in the course and posed future challenges for teacher trainees Therefore, it is advisable for ULIS and any other Vietnamese universities majoring in language teaching to put more focus on providing language assessment courses Specifically, teacher trainers in ULIS may consider the existing problems of students such as lack of components in target structure, misunderstandings about the CEFR scale, mismatch between CEFR level and assessment target; mismatch between learning content and testing content, lack of components of test tasks, insufficient items writing techniques, lack of understanding about authenticity, … and put more emphasis on them when they deliver the lesson Changes to the textbook or the course construct are also advisable for the educators in this school As students experienced more hardships and challenges in assessing language skills, more practices or assignments can be allocated to this subsection Last but not least, it is true that in the meantime, the internship program for preservice teachers pays no attention to their LAC Therefore, almost all participants found no chance to practice their assessment competence Although in ULIS, the internship program has just been converted into a more innovative format in 74 which students can choose where and when they want to complete the internship and make their own portfolio However, no criteria of LAC have yet to be found in the requirements of the internship portfolio Therefore, it is suggested that some LAC criteria are added This change is highly likely to cause some difficulties, but it will definitely prepare pre-service teachers better for their future in-service practices 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study Although the research was conducted carefully, there are some certain limitations that need to be addressed First, there were only 225 pre-service teachers out of the population of 330 participating in the research Although the study tried to involve the whole population in the research context, it was made impossible because of the Covid19 pandemic Moreover, the questionnaire, which was the most important instrument of the research had to be distributed online, which reduced the authenticity and validity of the collected data Secondly, due to time limits, the research could not include the teachers’ perceptions about challenges If the researcher had been able to conduct interview with teachers, meaningful comparison with those of students can be conducted to conclude on the most noticeable and urgent challenges that need to be tackled to improve pre-service teachers’ LAC in ULIS Last but not least, the target population of this study were only pre-service teacher in ULIS Therefore, the results are insufficient to be generalized to other schools in Vietnam or pre-service teachers in Vietnam as a whole Therefore, further studies can investigate the assessment competence in other scales to provides more insights into the field of LAC in Vietnam 75 REFERENCES: American Federation of Teachers & National Council on Measurement in Education (1990) Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students Washington DC Ashworth, P D & Saxton, J (1990) On ‘Competence’, Journal of Further and Higher Education Brown, G T L (2002) Teachers' conceptions of assessment NZ: University of Auckland Brown, J D., & Hudson, T (1998) The alternatives in language assessment TESOL Quarterly, 32(4), 653-675 Canada Education Association Joint Committee (1993) Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices for Education in Canada Alberta: Edmonton Christensen, C R., David A G., & A Sweet, eds Education for Judgment: The Artistry of Discussion Leadership Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1991 Dhindsa, H., Omar, K., & Waldrip, B (2007, August 1) Upper Secondary Bruneian Science Students' Perceptions of Assessment International Journal of Science Education, 29(10), 1281-1280 Duong, M T (2012) Hình thái giáo dục đại phương pháp không truyền thống để đánh giá lực học tập học sinh phổ thông Việt Nam sau năm 2015 Paper presented at the Hội nghị đánh giá kết học tập học sinh chương trình giáo dục phổ thông sau năm 2015, Hanoi 76 James H McMillan, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Firoozi, Tahereh, et al "The language assessment literacy needs of Iranian EFL teachers with a focus on reformed assessment policies." Language Testing in Asia, vol 9, no 1, 2019, p NA Accessed 11 May 2020 Herrera, L & Macías, D (2015) A call for language assessment competence in the education and development of teachers of English as a foreign language Colomb.Appl Linguist J., 17(2), pp 302-312 Hornberger, Nancy H.; Shohamy, Elana (2008) Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Volume 7: Language Testing and Assessment Berlin: Springer Mertler, C A (2004) Secondary teachers’ assessment competence: does classroom experience make a difference? American Secondary Education, 33(1), 49–64 Mertler, C A., & Campbell, C (2005) Measuring teachers’ knowledge and application of classroom assessment concepts: Development of the assessment competence inventory In Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Research Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED490355 MOET (2008) Decision No 1400/QĐ-TTg: ‘Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008 to 2020’ Retrieved from http://www.chinhphu.vn/portal/page/portal/chinhphu/hethongvanban?class_id= 1&_page=18&mode=detail&document_id=78437 77 MOET (2014) Dispatch No 5333/BGDĐT-GDTrH: Triển khai kiểm tra đánh giá theo định hướng phát triển lực môn tiếng Anh cấp trung học từ năm học 2014-2015 Hanoi MOET (2016) Dispatch No 3333/ BGDĐT-GDTrH: Sử dụng định dạng đề thi đánh giá lực tiếng Anh dành cho học sinh phổ thông từ năm học 2015-2016 Hanoi MOET (2016) Dispatch No 1475/ BGDĐT-GDTrH: Ban hành định dạng đề thi đánh giá lực sử dụng tiếng Anh bậc theo Khung lực ngoại ngữ bậc dùng cho Việt Nam (dành cho học sinh Trung học sở) Hanoi Öz, S., Artay, D (2017) Turkish EFL instructors’ in-class language assessment competence: perceptions and practices ELT Journal Popham, W.J 2009 Assessment literacy for teachers: Faddish or fundamental? Theory into Practice, 48(1) Stiggins, R J (1991) Assessment competence Phi Delta Kappan, 72, 534–539 Stiggins, R J (1997) Student-centered classroom assessment Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall Taylor, Lynda (2009) Developing assessment literacy Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 29 21 - 36 10.1017/S0267190509090035 Vogt, Karin & Tsagari, Dina (2014) Assessment Literacy of Foreign Language Teachers: Findings of a European Study Language Assessment Quarterly 11 374-402 10.1080/15434303.2014.960046 78 Zhang, Z., & Burry-Stock, J A ( 2003) Classroom assessment practices and teachers’ self-perceived assessment skills Applied Measurement in Education, 16(4), 323-342 79 APPENDIX: Appendix 1: The adopted and modified version for the course “Language Assessment” QUESTIONNAIRE: THE ASSESSMENT COMPETENCE OF PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS IN UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY My name is Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, a senior from class 16E2, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education I am conducting a research on the preservice teachers’ language assessment competence with the desire to inform teacher educators or government agencies about language teachers’ needs in assessment The questionnaire has no right or wrong answer Therefore, I hope you will answer honestly so that the survey results will be accurate and reliable Information collected from the survey will be used for data analysis purposes and is kept strictly confidential I guarantee it will not appear in the report of research results If you have questions or questions, please contact me via phone or email address below: Nguyễn Thị Liên Hương – 16E2SP Phone number: 0985138580 Email: lienhuongnguyentpc11@gmail.com Part I: General information: Which class are you in? ……………………… (Please kindly fill in number and if you are willing to participate in my future interviews) Email: ……………………… Phone number: ……………………… 80 Part II: Knowledge of the course Please look at the following language assessment competences, and rate your level of satisfaction with your ability to conduct them by circling the number below = Very dissatisfied (VD) = Dissatisfied (D) = Neutral (N) = Satisfied (S) = Very satisfied (VS) No Items VD D N S VS 5 5 Define and explain the meanings and relationships of key terms (assessment, evaluation, test, …) Explain and distinguish among different language assessment purposes Familiarize with key steps in the language assessment process and some options in each step Define a learning target 81 Explain the importance of targets in teaching and 5 5 5 5 5 assessment Evaluate a learning target Understand how to write a learning target Understand one framework for writing LA target (Bachman’s) Understand practical LA targets Evaluate the benefits and 10 drawbacks of different alternatives in LA Identify main factors affecting 11 the choice of an appropriate assessment practice for a particular purpose 12 13 Understand components of an assessment task Identify main purposes of vocabulary assessment Select the most representative 14 aspect(s) of lexical knowledge to measure for a particular purpose 82 Discuss the advantages and 15 disadvantages of some common vocabulary 5 5 5 5 5 assessment methods 16 Identify main purposes of grammar assessment Select the most representative 17 aspect(s) of grammatical knowledge to measure for a particular purpose Discuss the advantages and 18 disadvantages of some common grammatical assessment methods 19 20 21 22 23 24 Understand the CEFR scale descriptors for reading Identify features of reading assessment tasks Evaluate reading test critically Understand the CEFR level for listening Distinguish different types of listening and listening texts Understand the challenges of assessing listening 83 Select appropriate tasks to 25 assess students’ listening for 5 5 5 5 different purposes Identify the main purposes of writing assessment and select 26 the aspect(s) of writing to match with assessment purposes 27 Evaluate tasks in a writing test more critically Discuss the advantages and 28 disadvantages of common writing assessment methods Identify measures to enhance 29 the quality of writing assessment Identify the main purposes of speaking assessment and select 30 the aspect(s) of speaking to match with assessment purposes 31 Evaluate tasks in a speaking test critically Discuss the advantages and 32 disadvantages of using scoring rubrics in speaking assessment 84 Discuss how peer and self33 assessment can be used in 5 5 5 5 speaking assessment practice 34 35 Understand the definitions of qualities of LA List some practical ways to improve the quality of LA Identify features of two 36 frameworks in score interpretation (norm and criterion referenced) 37 38 39 40 Interpret writing scores with criterion-referenced framework Identify what good feedback is Successfully communicate with learners about feedback Select tools to give more effective feedback to learners 85 Appendix 2: Semi-structured interview questions Interview with students: 1) What are the most noticeable gains that the course “Language Assessment” bring to your assessment competence? + Give a specific example of a situation where the acquired skills and knowledge benefit you both in and after the course? + Reflect about your own progress as an English teacher after the course? (some initial thoughts about the course, hardships and obstacles, solutions and gains after the practice) 2) What are students’ perceptions of the future challenges for these student teachers in and after the course? + What difficulties you have when you assess language components (including vocabulary and grammar) during the course (especially when completing the assignments)? + What difficulties you have when you assess language components (including vocabulary and grammar) after learning the course (in your part-time jobs or internship, …)? + What difficulties you have when you assess language skills (including reading, listening, speaking, writing) during the course (especially when completing the assignments)? + What difficulties you have when you assess language components (including vocabulary and grammar) after learning the course (in your part-time jobs or internship, …)? Which skills you think is the hardest to assess in Vietnam schools? 86 Appendix 3: Checklist for marking the oral presentation: Point Understand and explain the meanings and relationships of key terms used in the given assessment scenario? Explain the assessment purpose and distinguish it from a wide range of language assessment purposes? Write the assessment targets in the given scenario? Differentiate three common assessment methods including selected-, constructed- and personal-response one? Weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of these methods and their accompanied instruments? Select an appropriate method for the given scenario and justify such a selection with sufficient and well-explained evidence? Appendix 4: Checklist for marking the evaluative essay: Performance standards 1: Arguments are not communicated clearly and effectively, with no supporting evidence from the test 2: A small number of arguments are communicated clearly and there is modest evidence from the test 3: Most arguments are clear, with specific, sufficient and reasonably wellexplained examples from the test 4: Arguments are clear and convincing, with specific, sufficient, clearly wellexplained and highly connected examples from the test 87 Criteria Performance standards 1 Comment on the assessment targets for reading and writing in the test specifications Comment on the match of the assessment targets and the reading and writing sample tests Comment on the appropriateness and feasibility of assessment methods and question types for reading and writing Comment on the quality of reading and writing test task components (instruction, input, expected response) Comment on the item writing techniques for reading and writing Comment on the authenticity of the test tasks for reading and writing 88 ... the preservice ones As a result, this research aims at scrutinizing the perception of preservice teachers? ?? assessment literacy at a foreign language teacher training institution in Vietnam called... educational institutions often associate to create sets of standards for teachers? ?? assessment competence 10 For instance, in 1990, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Council on Measurement... Participate in studying and researching about the theoretical basis of testing and evaluation of educational and teaching activities in elementary schools; b) Participate in studying and researching