Self-assessment.

Similar to peer assessment, I did not observe self-assessment in the participants’ classes, although they expressed their advocacy to apply this type of assessment in their lessons. They believed, however, that students were not ready for self-assessment. The other participants who

reported that they applied self-assessment in their classes seemed to use it for test-preparation than for student learning.

Most of the participants did not provide a clear definition of self-assessment, Hajar, for example, did not provide a clear description of self-assessment, neither did she reflect a clear practice of self-assessment. I asked her in the initial interview whether she conducted self- assessment; she first replied “no,” but then revised her answer immediately, stating that she sometimes divided the class into rows and they would exchange papers to mark each other’s work:

Excerpt 39: I have called one of the students to explain something on the board and they assess her—this is one thing. Another thing, I would give them for example a question on the board, and I would tell each one of them to try her own answer, and then when I explain, I say, “Check. Is your answer correct or not?” So she assesses herself; no one knows. Or sometimes they exchange [papers] and [grade each other]. (Hajar, II)

She believed asking students to answer individually and then check their answers with the teacher to be a form of self-assessment, but it was left to the student to perform such an assessment; if a student tried to check her answers and see whether they were correct, she would be engaging in a form of self-assessment.

I only observed Mona and Hajar applied some form of self-assessment. They both applied it in the grammar lessons and seemed to use it for the purpose of test preparation. For example, during one of Mona’s grammar lessons I observed, she explained the present continuous tense she distributed a worksheet on the topic, which contained the grammar rule about the present continuous, followed by a set of open-ended questions. Mona appears to complete the exercise using self-assessment. She asked the students to complete the worksheet individually. She explained this strategy as follows:

Excerpt 40: First of all, I wanted to make sure that they understand everything by themselves, another thing is to promote learner’s autonomy and this is when teachers encourage students to depend on themselves in learning and answering questions, and then later on we can check the answers together, so yes I did that deliberately I mean on purpose. (Mona, PI)

Although Mona stated that the purpose of self-assessment was to enhance students’ autonomy, when she asked students to complete this task, she created a test-like atmosphere; each student answered on her own, but she did not walk around to follow-up with students. When she asked students to answer the questions as though they were taking a test, she reassured them indirectly that this practice exercise was not going to be graded. She reported that she asks students to answer the questions as if it were a test because she planned classroom assessment tasks to be similar in format to the tests. According to Mona, another purpose of having students complete a task individually like a test is

Excerpt 41: that at least they know how to test themselves instead of asking their friends for some answers or some help. If they depend on themselves at least it can help in lowering exams’ stress. I think, you give them practices now and then and they act as a test, you know at least when the real test comes, it can be a bit easier. (Mona, PI)

For Hajar, she reported that using self-assessment for the purpose of test preparation was not related to the test format but rather the students’ awareness of how to review their answers or to identify their mistakes—a strategy that appears to be necessary for all types of assessment. She asked the students to complete an exercise and then answered the questions with them. When she had answered all the questions, she asked whether anyone had gotten all of the

answers right. Because she explained that the level of the students was low and that she believed that the teacher role is dominant in her context, Hajar seemed not to apply self-assessment. It may be that she considered this the only appropriate individual assessment that she could apply in her classes.

As indicated above, several participants used short-answer questions for the purpose of scaffolding. Najla used short-answer questions for such a purpose, but she reported that the ultimate purpose of asking short-answer questions was to enhance student self-assessment. For example, she was seen scaffolding learners when she assessed them on grammar tasks. She did

the first question with them, then scaffolding occurred when she instructed them on how to handle an exercise.

N: So you have here from 1 to 24. You have nouns and we refer to something in relation to the noun. So

feet and we want to talk about the swelling of the feet, so we say/

S: /its

N: Ok, foot or feet S: Feet

N: One or many? S: Many

N: So, it’s a plural, so we say its or their? S: Their

N: Their, OK. So do the exercises 2 to 24 and then we’ll do them together.

As she specified in the interviews, she aimed to make students “conscious learners.” She wanted students to assess themselves and understand their mistakes with her help, implying that she was trying to scaffold students to get them to the point where they could reason by themselves. It is uncertain whether she considered her strategy to be effective in making students conscious learners or if she was just following a routine assessment practice that could be aiming at moving the lesson forward.