Pre-Service ESL Teachers’ Perceptions and Other Factors Influencing their Use of Performance-based Assessment

Speaker: Dr Anisa CHEUNG

This seminar will report on a qualitative study that examined pre-service ESL teachers’ perceptions of Performance-based Assessment (PBA), a form of classroom assessment that focuses on students’ performance on a range of real-world tasks. Specifically, the seminar will highlight the participating pre-service teachers’ use of PBA strategies, their understanding of the function and effectiveness of this assessment method, and various factors influencing its implementation in the classroom. The pre-service teachers will showcase their use of PBA as an assessment tool during their Field Experiences and how PBA helped them to consolidate the learning objectives of each lesson. In addition to their implementation of PBA to promote self-reflection and peer-learning opportunities among students, the preservice teachers will discuss students’ language proficiency, learner diversity, lesson time limits, and degree of autonomy granted by schools as major factors influencing the kinds of PBA strategies they employed. Finally, the seminar will address the implications of the pre-service teachers’ PBA perceptions, beliefs and practices for educators and school administrators.