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Appendices
Appendix A
Pre-designed Interview Questions
Beliefs about language and language learning
1. Briefly describe your educational and teaching experience. How does the experience influence your theory of language and language learning?
2. What do you think is (are) the purpose(s) of learning English?
3. What factor (s) do you think influence(s) students most when they learn English?
Beliefs about assessment in general
1. In your opinion, what is (are) the purpose(s) of assessment?
2. What do you think are the uses of formative and summative assessment? Which one do you think is more important?
3. Besides their performance in tests, what aspects do you take into consideration when assessing students?
Beliefs about planning and evaluating assessment Planning assessment
1. What factors of students, the curriculum, or school do you take into consideration when designing your assessment activities? What are the criteria of those activities? (For Freshman English and for Guided Writing respectively)
2. Explain your requirements of the course. How do you decide on them? (For Freshman English and for Guided Writing respectively)
3. What do you think are the criteria for a good oral presentation?
4. What do you think are the criteria for a good writing piece?
5. Besides a score, what feedback do you give to a student on his or her writing?
Evaluating assessment
1. Do you reflect on your assessment practices after each meeting, or do you do the reflection periodically after several class meetings?
2. From what perspectives do you reflect on your own assessment?
Beliefs about implementing assessment
1. How do you check students’ understanding during instruction?
2. Were there any occasions on which you implemented assessment different from your preferred assessment?
3. When you find out students’ difficulties, how do you deal with them?
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Appendix B
Interview Questions Concerning Freshman English and Guided Writing Following the Pre-designed Interviews with the Instructors
Instructor A Freshman English
1. Will students’ performances in answering questions or doing exercises in class be considered in their final grades? And how do you grade students’ performance in this part?
2. Do you pay attention to students’ accuracy of language when they are answering questions in class? Why?
3. Will every question and exercise in the textbook be discussed and done? Why?
4. Explain your beliefs that underlie the assignment of weights to different assessment activities.
5. What are your criteria for assessing group oral reports and group role-plays?
6. Why do you give students the chance to revise their drafts of group role-plays?
7. Why do you spend so much time discussing students’ drafts of oral performances in class?
8. Do you implement all the assessment activities in your syllabus? What is (are) the major factor (s) that cause (s) you to deviate from your original plan for
assessment?
Guided Writing
1. What is (are) the purpose (s) of engaging students in peer proofreading after they finish their in-class writings?
2. Do you have different criteria for in-class writings and journals?
3. To what extent should students revise their in-class writings? And how do you decide on individual student’s final grade of in-class writings?
4. What is (are) the purpose (s) of asking students to follow the checklist when they do peer proofreading for their in-class writings?
5. How do you decide on what to include in the checklist?
6. Why do you spend most of the class time commenting on students’ writings rather than teaching the content of the textbook?
7. Do students’ efforts devoted to doing textbook exercises affect their grades? Why?
8. Why do you ask students to practice writing on the topic of the writing test of GEPT? How does it differ from the regular in-class writing?
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Instructor B
Freshman English
1. Explain your beliefs that underlie the assignment of weights to different assessment activities.
2. Why do you require students to attend class regularly?
3. How do you decide on the format of the end-of-unit quiz?
4. Why do you give students opportunities to make up for their grades in end-of-unit quizzes voluntarily?
5. Why do you want to give more lectures in the second semester?
6. Do you reflect on your beliefs and practices of assessment?
7. Do you give a score to students’ drafts of group role-play or self-introduction?
8. Do you implement all the assessment activities in your syllabus? What is (are) the major factor (s) that cause (s) you to deviate you original plan for assessment?
9. Why do you allow some students to bring the quiz home and finish it when they cannot finish the quiz in class?
Guided Writing
1. Why do you use analytic scoring to assess students’ in-class writings?
2. Do you have different criteria for take-home writings and journals?
3. Why do you only give quiz on writing once? Why do you give this quiz in the second semester?
4. What are your criteria for a good writing piece?
5. How do you decide on the weights for different assessment activities?
6. Explain your beliefs about designing the questions of the final exam of Guided Writing?
7. How do you decide on the topic of take-home writings?
8. What types of exercises in the textbook do you assign students to do in class?
Why?
