Interview with Dr Abdolmehdi Riazi on Classroom Assessment and Language Learning

Considering the fact that your were extensively involved in research on English language curriculum issues in the Iranian context when you were at Shiraz University, your current involvement in the same area of research in the international forefront at Macquarie University places you in a unique position to contribute to our better understanding of those issues and the way they can be tackled more effectively. One of the issues that has gained more prominence as a result of the shift to the CLT approach in the secondary school English curriculum is classroom assessment. So I would like to ask you to share your views with ROSHD readers on classroom assessment. It might be helpful to first explain the dynamics between large-scale testing and classroom assessment as they relate to the issues that are normally created when a traditional exam-based curriculum is shifted to CLT.