Turkish High School EFL Teachers’ AfL Practices: Reported vs. Actual Classroom Practices

English (OpenAlex)

There has been a recognition of Assessment for Learning (AfL) in language teaching around the world. However, how and to what extent EFL teachers can benefit from AfL in Türkiye is questionable. This study aimed to examine English language teachers' reported and actual classroom teaching practices and to detect any variation between these practices. A checklist, semi-structured interviews, and tasks prepared for each AfL strategy were employed within an explanatory sequential design. The participants of the study were divided into three groups: checklist respondents (N=111), interview respondents (N=10), and task respondents (N=115). Descriptive statistics were used for the quantitative data analysis, and deductive coding was utilised for the qualitative data. The quantitative data analysis yielded relatively high scores on EFL high school teachers' AfL implementations demonstrating their reported practices. Still, a group among them stated to learn further on different issues about all these AfL strategies such as 'how to assess students' attainment of the objectives without exams', 'how to increase classroom participation', 'different ways to provide feedback', 'objectivity in self-assessment', 'determining the success of peers in homework'. Interestingly, qualitative results provided somewhat different insights into their actual classroom practices. Although teachers were informed of AfL strategies and even carried out them to a certain extent, these implementations did not completely correspond to the basic principles and, thus, their reported practices. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of AfL practices in the EFL context.