Abstract
Using a netnography design, the current study attempts to discover in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, how teachers alter their assessment approach to account for students' vulnerability to traumas and how institutional regulations and administrative actions impact these assessment plans in online emergency ELT speaking and writing classes. Three teachers from beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes took part in the investigation throughout 12 asynchronous and synchronous sessions. The qualitative data were collected using observation notes and interviews with the three teachers. The findings reveal that although the teachers have been trained in trauma-informed assessment practices prior to their course, they could not always succeed in implementing these practices. However, it is worth noting that their classrooms often share the common characteristics of a trauma-informed approach, and institutional policies and administrative decisions could significantly affect the trauma-informed practices of the online emergency ELT classrooms.
TopIntroduction
The World Health Organization's announcement of the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020) has significantly reshaped many aspects of education around the world, including assessment in language teaching and learning. This pandemic has forced people to follow strict social distancing policies, minimizing direct face-to-face interactions in public. As a result, it has globally compelled educational institutions to shift from traditional face-to-face classrooms to online classrooms. Although some developed nations have efficiently started their academic school year online even before the pandemic (Allen & Seaman, 2013), other developing nations can encounter several difficulties in implementing COVID-19-prompted online education due to time and resource constraints. In Vietnam, for example, when over 20 million students must resort to online learning (Ministry of Education and Training, 2020), there are unsorted burning issues, ranging from the shortage of accessible technological devices, unstable Internet connection, lack of educational resources, and heavy workload for instructors, to limited information and communication technology skills (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020; Atmojo & Nugroho, 2020; Can & Silman-Karanfil, 2021). COVID-19, indeed, has brought tremendous challenges to education in developing countries, especially those without a sophisticated ready-made system for online education. Notwithstanding that many articles have explored how teachers can adapt their teaching strategies to meet the new challenges of COVID-19, only a few would consider assessment in an online emergency remote teaching and learning environment. Research on assessment strategies in online emergency ELT classes is even scarcer in some developing nations, whose facilities for learning and teaching online may be insufficient, including countries like Vietnam. In a study by Dinh and Nguyen (2020), the researchers surveyed the level of immediate satisfaction with online learning of 186 undergraduate Vietnamese social work students during COVID-19. Although they discovered that in general, the participants were more satisfied with face-to-face assessment methods and other offline learning formats than with the online delivery mode, it remained unclear whether the distinctive features of crisis-prompted teaching and learning such as the learners’ psychological states and health were rigorously considered during the process of online learning and assessment of the study (Dinh & Nguyen, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Summative Assessment: Assessment practices usually conducted at the end of a course, a semester, or an academic year since it summarizes all the content that a student has learned after a long process.
Netnography: Robert Kozinets developed this approach and defined it as a branch of ethnography which examines the free behaviors of people on the internet.
Formative Assessment: Assessment practices including frequent classroom activities that teachers and students undertake to assess the students' proficiency.
Online Emergency Remote Teaching: The implementation of online teaching in emergencies such as wars or natural disasters.
Trauma-Informed Approach/Pedagogy: Programs, organizations, or systems that accept the effects of trauma and put effort to minimize its detrimental impacts.
Assessment: Includes techniques, methods, and strategies to measure the learners' ability, knowledge, and skills.
Inclusive Assessment: Assessment practices that do not prejudice or favor students while being able to keep academic standards.
Trauma: Trauma is a psychological reaction to a disturbing incident, such as an accident, rape, or natural disaster, which cause an individual experiencing deeply negative emotion.