Assessment Literacy of Foreign Language Teachers around Europe: Research, Challenges and Future Prospects

The concept of literacy has expanded significantly in the course of the last decade to include computer literacy or science literacy in academic and public discourse. The recent focus of attention on classroom-based language assessment has brought the aspect of language assessment literacy (LAL) to the forefront, with foreign language teachers as one important group of stakeholders whose professionalization of this concept is important. The current paper aims at relating the findings from part of a large-scale study that was undertaken in seven different European countries in order to shed light on perceived LAL levels of foreign language teachers and their training needs in language testing and assessment. The focus will be on the qualitative part of the mixed methods study that examines foreign language school teachers’ perceptions in three different educational contexts, namely Cyprus, Germany and Greece. The paper closes with an outline of the implications for teacher development and directions for future research.