Alternative methods to assess EFL pupils in the FWB: focus on peer-, portfolio-, and technology-enhanced assessment

This present study investigated the use of peer-, portfolio-, and technology-enhanced assessment (TEA) by EFL teachers teaching in secondary education in the FWB. It also intended to investigate the use of these methods to assess the writing skill. The aim of the study was to answer the following research questions: (1) Have English teachers working in the FWB ever used these methods? Have they ever used these methods to assess the writing skill ? (2) How have English teachers working in the FWB implemented these methods? (3) What do teachers think of these methods? In order to answer these questions, a quantitative survey along with a qualitative investigation have been conducted with EFL teachers teaching in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades in catholic secondary education. The qualitative investigation consisted of interviews with teachers having taken part in the survey. Based on the quantitative analysis, the results showed that TEA is the most used among the three methods. Portfolio assessment, on the contrary, seems to be used by a small minority of teachers, who were not among the teachers interviewed. Based on the qualitative analysis, it seems that peer assessment and technology-enhanced assessment are mostly used to assess the lexical and/or grammatical resources. Peer assessment is perceived as a method offering many benefits including easing teachers’ workload but can turn out to be ineffective if the level of language proficiency is not high enough. TEA seems to be very helpful for distance learning for instance. These assessment methods offered other benefits which are to be discovered in this present thesis.