Integrating performance-based assessment and dialogic feedback in English language teacher education: a conceptual framework

Abstract

Assessment in teacher education is required to fulfill two main functions that are difficult to align. It must certify that a candidate is ready to enter the profession and, at the same time, support the candidate's further learning. These functions stand in tension, and the tension is most visible in English Language Teacher Education (ELTE), where the competencies that matter most, such as managing classroom interaction, planning lessons, interpreting learner language, and reflecting on practice, are demonstrated through what candidates do rather than through what a decontextualized test can record. Performance-based assessment (PBA) has become the accepted response to this problem. Yet the field has not established which design features make such assessment educationally productive or which forms of feedback contribute most to a candidate's development. This study addresses these questions conceptually and argues that performance-based summative assessment and dialogic formative feedback are best understood as a single system rather than as competing demands. Within the study, a four-criterion account of what makes feedback dialogic is proposed, namely bidirectionality, uptake scaffolding, temporal proximity to the performance, and the elicitation of candidate self-evaluation. Treating equity as central to the analysis, it is noted that non-native English-speaking (NNES) candidates constitute the majority of the world's English-teaching workforce. Moreover, assessment designs that combine language proficiency with pedagogical skill may disadvantage them in obscure ways. In light of these considerations, the study proposes an integrative, equity-aware framework, labeled the performance-feedback alignment (PFA) framework, to help teacher educators and program designers construct assessment systems that maintain summative rigor and formative value in tow.