Alternative assessment in Turkish primary EFL classrooms: An investigation into the performance tasks

This study attempted to shed light into whether there was a match between the Primary Education Institutions? Regulation and EFL classroom practice concerning Performance Tasks in terms of quality, process, and evaluation. Besides, the opinions of students and their teachers in relation to this practice have also been identified. The participants of this study were 359 5th grade EFL students and 43 English language teachers working with these students. The participants were selected from 10 different state primary schools from the Seyhan region of Adana, Turkey. In order to gain an insight into the research questions, data were collected by means of questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis. Results have shown that the intended goals of performance tasks in the schools which were included in this study were generally perceived to have been moderately achieved, which suggests the existence of some learning gains as well as some problems in this framework. Performance Tasks have been found to be a useful practice as evidenced by the reported benefits such as increased motivation, vocabulary improvement, improvement of research, grammar reinforcement and raising consciousness about the benefits of disciplined studying and responsibilities. On the other hand, there have also been some problems experienced during this practice related to the characteristics, process, and evaluation of Performance Tasks. In the light of the findings from this study, some suggestions were made to language teachers, teacher training institutions, and the Ministry of National Education.