Iranian EFL Teachers' Intercultural Sensitivity and Their Assessment Literacy across Teaching Experience

Experts in applied linguistics and education has reached a consensus on the social nature of learning as a mediated process that relies heavily on support and scaffolding offered by the teachers in the social context of the classroom where the target is to learn language as a social tool that carries cultural values as well. Hence, raising and assessing learners' intercultural sensitivity (ICS) seems crucial in the new millennium and is possible only if English teachers have already reached high levels of ICS and developed an acceptable level of language assessment knowledge (LAK). The current ex-post-facto needs analysis study was thus undertaken to assess Iranian EFL teachers' levels of ICS and LAK across teaching experience. A convenience sample of ۵۰ EFL teachers were selected from among MA students and graduates who had teaching experience of one to four years (novice teachers) and more than eight years (experienced teachers). ICS scale and LAK test were administered to the participants to elicit their levels in these two variables. The research data were tabulated and analysed through SPSS version ۲۶. Descriptive statistics and t-test analyses of the results indicated that experienced teachers' perception of ICS was significantly higher than the novice participants while regardless of teaching experience, both groups reported lower than average levels of LAK. The findings offer important pedagogical implications for teacher training and teacher education programs.

کلیدواژه ها:

Intercultural Sensitivity (ICS) ، Langaue Assessment Knowledge (LAK) ، Teaching Experience