Inventory of foreign language teaching and assessment practices in Dutch secondary schools: insights into the effects of testing on FL teacher’s pedagogical approach

Description

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) aims to promote the development of communicative skills in realistic situations. Although foreign language teachers generally support the research-based approach of CLT, many of them fail to integrate it into their classrooms (Kissau et al., 2015). One of the most common reasons mentioned by FL teachers in the Netherlands is school requirements, particularly concerning evaluation (Fasoglio et al., 2015). Schools often use tests that come with widely-used textbooks, which tend to focus on assessing vocabulary, grammar, and receptive skills (reading and listening). Productive skills (speaking and writing) are tested less often, and if they are, this is usually done by asking pupils to translate sentences or reading texts out loud. Such tests barely introduce real-life unpredictability in the form of unknown or unprepared questions and fail to test communicative competence, i.e. the ability to adapt FL knowledge and skills to new situations. This seems to create a lack of constructive alignment between CLT learning goals on the one hand, and non-CLT teaching and testing approaches on the other hand. The current study - which is the inventory phase of a larger design-based research project - aims to provide more insight into (the background of) this lack of alignment, based on survey data (n = 170), interviews and classroom observations (n = 20), and analyses of FL tests and teaching materials. In this poster, I will present the first results of this inventory and discuss to what extent the data can be used in the design phase of the project. References: Fasoglio, D., Jong, K. de, Pennewaard, L., Trimbos, B., & Tuin, D. (2015). Moderne vreemde talen: Vakspecifieke trendanalyse 2015. Enschede: SLO. Kissau, S., Rodgers, M., & Haudeck, H. (2015). Practicing what they preach? A comparison of teacher candidate beliefs and practices. International journal of language studies, 9(4), 29-54.

Period	5 Apr 2019
Event title	Anela Juniorendag
Event type	Conference
Location	Veenendaal, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National