TITLE:
Embracing the Shift: Heritage Language Teachers’ Perspectives on Accepting Assessment for Learning as an Education Reform
AUTHORS:
Roszalina Rawi
KEYWORDS:
Assessment, Assessment for Learning, Assessment Reform, Teachers, Heritage Language
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.10,
October
12,
2023
ABSTRACT: This study focuses on how Singaporean heritage
language teachers comprehend and mediate their existing assessment practices in
light of assessment for learning (AfL). Although AfL has been studied
extensively in the Western classroom context, little is known about how
teachers in South East Asian heritage language classrooms, such as Malay
Language ones, perceive AfL. In the study, a survey regarding assessment
practices of 121 heritage language teachers across 80 schools in Singapore was
conducted. 20 in-depth interviews were carried out to investigate factors which
affected teachers’ acceptance of AfL. The study produces new knowledge
regarding AfL in four areas: the impact of cultural disconnects on AfL practice
in heritage language classrooms, the influence of teachers’ early assessment
habitus, the significance of moral responsibility as a
motivational tool for educational reform and the realization that Singaporean
educators deviate from centrally suggested initiatives when the desire to
fulfil performance-oriented beliefs about
learning is strong. There are several research implications. Firstly,
enhancing and sustaining heritage language teachers’ capacity of AfL knowledge
is crucial to increase their embrace of AfL practice. Secondly, policymakers
and school leaders need to be aware of teachers’ own assessment habitus and the
impact of habitus on teachers’ current classroom assessment practices.