Abstract:
Assuming that assessment is a form of monitoring, this study aimed to understand how Assessment for Learning in English Language was developed in public elementary school classrooms in Salvador. A qualitative research approach was employed, grounded in Narrative Inquiry, to analyze teachers' narratives about assessment practices in English language teaching. To this end, legal documents concerning assessment and the English language teaching-learning process in basic education were analyzed, such as the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law, the National Curriculum Parameters, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Basic Education, the National Common Core Curriculum, and the Bahia Referential Curriculum Document for Early Childhood and Elementary Education. The research data were constructed through semi-structured interviews, which were audio-recorded and analyzed using the Core of Significance procedure, enabling the identification of meanings attributed to assessment practices. Participants included a sixth-grade teacher and a ninth-grade teacher, both permanent faculty members of a state public school in Salvador. The study investigated how teachers plan and develop assessment practices and their relationship with learning, mediated by diverse instruments and procedures. The findings led to the construction of four Cores of Significance: Assessment committed to the construction of learning; Assessment conducted through interaction and dialogue, or through control and discipline; Assessment implemented in both heterogeneous and homogeneous ways to enhance learning; and Assessment in English Language facing the fragmentation of the teaching-learning process. Thus, the conclusions of this research indicate that assessment practices in lower secondary education are not uniformly formatted because teachers recognize that the educational context is diverse and that the English language teaching-learning process requires students’ agency and autonomy in understanding a new language. In this sense, the research showed that Assessment is carried out by teachers to develop learning rather than to classify, approve, or fail students.
