The CATESOL Journal

Recent “critical” research in applied linguistics has explored tensions in the classroom and made the point that nothing about language teaching is value-free, including assessment and evaluation of students (Morgan, 1998; Pennycook, 2001). Informed by this research, this article is an action research project looking into the assumptions in the author’s own assessing practices and what effects these may have on student “performance.” Specifically, the article examines differences in the backgrounds and expectations of teachers and students, teacher “appropriation” of student speaking and writing, and instances of student resistance and negotiation of accepted practices. The perspectives presented here complicate the notion of “assessment” in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms and lead to the development of new teaching methods that place less emphasis on overt classroom participation and incorporate multiple perspectives into the assessment and teaching of speaking and writing. The data for the study come from lessons taught during a graduate-level ESL course at a large public university in California.