Teacher Assessment Literacy in L2 Speaking: Exploring Novice and Experienced Iranian EFL Teachers' Perceptions and Practices

The way teachers conceptualize speaking and assess it in the classroom has always been a matter of controversy among researchers and teacher educators. This debate is further complicated when the variable of teacher experience comes into play. The present phenomenological study aimed to explore the perceptions of speaking assessment practices among experienced and novice Iranian English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. To this end, eight Iranian EFL teachers with different teaching experiences were interviewed in two groups of four, including two novice and two experienced teachers in each group. The results of the inductive thematic analysis revealed that the experienced and novice teachers differed in how they defined speaking components, paid specific attention to them, assessed these components, and evaluated their results. The findings are discussed in detail and practical implications are outlined for EFL practitioners and test developers to create well-designed rubrics that include speaking components, which will ultimately contribute to the quality and fairness of scoring criteria.