Turkish EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices of Foreign Language Assessment in Primary Education

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate perceptions of EFL teachers working at state primary schools on core language skills, assessment types and question types used in assessing student’s foreign language development and proficiency during an academic year. Data were gathered from 56 EFL teachers working at 42 primary state schools in Turkey through a questionnaire comprising a variety of items to elicit their perceptions and applications of language assessment in the classes of 4th to 6th graders. Results obtained from frequency analyses indicated that the pen-and-paper tests, performance tasks, and in-class observation are the mostly used assessment tools, and that the selected response items are mostly employed question types in the tests, and that performance-based and communication-based assessment types are preferred more frequently than the traditional types in evaluating students’ success in learning EFL.