This paper discusses English language teachers’ assessment literacy in Brazil. The great majority of the participants consider they either do not know or know little about the issue which indicates the urgent need of offering initial and ongoing education to those teaching foreign languages to children in Brazil.
In the last few decades, there has been significant growth in the teaching of foreign languages to children in Brazil, particularly the English language. Considering learning assessment as a crucial element in teaching and learning, in this presentation we discuss teacher’s assessment literacy in this educational field. The data was generated by means of an online questionnaire, which was answered by 151 teachers from all over the country. The original questionnaire consisted in 70 statements about a wide variety of issues related to the assessment of children learning foreign languages. For the purpose of this paper, aiming at presenting part of a broader research on assessment literacy, we selected four statements which, from our point of view, are crucial knowledge to teachers' work and to the integration of teaching, learning and assessment: to know how to use assessment to guide teaching and learning objectives; to know how to use assessment to verify students' learning progress; to know how to use assessment to diagnose students' strengths and weaknesses; and to know how to use assessment to motivate students' learning. The results showed that the great majority of the participants consider they either do not know or know little about these four issues, which indicates the urgent need of offering initial and ongoing education to those teaching foreign languages to children in Brazil.
