A sociocultural analysis of teacher language assessment literacy (LAL) development: Stories from novice Vietnamese EFL teachers

Abstract: This study explores the process of language assessment literacy (LAL) development among novice Vietnamese EFL teachers at a foreign language education institution in northern Vietnam. Using Vygotsky's sociocultural theory as its theoretical framework, the study aims to understand how teachers' language assessment concepts are formed, what cultural-historical, ontogenetic, and microgenetic elements mediate those concept formations, and how teachers emotionally experience the process of language assessment concept formation. The study found that teacher assessment concept formation is a long and complex process, involving mediators from all three genetic domains, and is mediated by sociocultural factors refracted through each participant's constantly evolving perezhivanie. The study proposes a model of teacher LAL development as a cognitive-affective process of concept formation and argues for the application of concept-based instruction (CBI) in promoting teacher LAL.