WORLD LANGUAGE TEACHERS' ASSESSMENT BELIEFS AND GRADING PRACTICES

Abstract

Gradebooks take center stage in educational settings and are used to determine a student’s eligibility to pass a class, graduate, or attend college. Grading practices are often private and vary greatly, even in the same department. This study examined one world language department in a U.S. public high school to compare the assessments that were entered into the teachers’ gradebooks, why and how those assessments were administered, and subsequently how they were weighted in the gradebook. I conducted interviews with seven world language teachers to explore the range of teachers’ beliefs about student achievement in world language, since this achievement could be assessed in many different ways, such as speaking, writing, reading, and listening. The qualitative research was conducted through individual interviews, to inquire about the teachers’ gradebook setups, their beliefs about student achievement, and each of the assessments found in their gradebook reports. The interviews were recorded on Zoom, transcribed, analyzed, and coded for themes through the lens of Bakhtin’s authoritative discourse. Assessment and gradebook practices in the interviews revealed diverse, patchwork views about world language achievement. The beliefs, ranging from macro to micro levels, related student world language achievement to understanding concepts, accumulating knowledge, communicating, negotiating meaning, participating in communities of practice, reciting and reading aloud, and connecting to cultures. The teachers also believed to varying degrees that non-academic factors like effort should be reflected in students’ grades. These results indicated that teachers’ beliefs may contribute to teachers’ avoidance of certain kinds of important assessments. Self-reflection along with individual and collaborative gradebook evaluations could aid teachers in finding gaps in their assessment practices. In departments that require the implementation of common assessments, holding diverse achievement beliefs can cause conflict, but collaboration and mutual training might improve the departments’ overall assessment and grading practices.