English Language Testing and Evaluation Course in English Language Teacher Education Programs in Türkiye: Who, What, and How?

Abstract

This study investigates the current state of a language testing course taught in Foreign Language Education Departments in Türkiye. It examines who teaches the ELTEC, how course content is determined, and which topics and textbooks are covered. The participants of the study included 21 ELTEC instructors from 13 universities. Semi-structured interviews and documentation were utilized to collect the data. Adopting a mixed-methods research design, the researchers collected qualitative data and employed a rigorous systematic content analysis. Then they quantized the content analysis results to provide descriptive findings. The results reveal that teacher educators often use a textbook-based approach to create the ELTEC content; therefore, it falls behind the recent developments in LTA. The content coverage is heavily summative assessment-oriented with little or no focus on formative assessment and giving feedback. It is suggested that the ELTEC instructors and curriculum developers make qualitative and quantitative changes to the ELTEC to improve the Language Assessment Literacy of future EFL teachers by means of a situated-LTA training approach.