Implementing Alternative Assessment to Foster Organizational and Pragmatic Competencies in Oral Tasks: An EFL Context Study

The present study set out to inspect how organizational and pragmatic knowledge can be functions of the assessment techniques practices implemented in the classroom. To this aim, the effects of teacher, peer, and self-assessment techniques that focused on providing feedback on pragmatic and organizational knowledge were compared. A total number of 98 female Iranian learners studying at pre-intermediate level in a language institute participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to one of the three groups of self-assessment (SA) (N = 32), peer-assessment (PA) (N = 33), and teacher-assessment (TA) (N = 33). Pragmatic competence was gauged using Discourse Role Play Talks (DRPTs) and organizational knowledge was assessed by a scale covering the grammatical and textual knowledge of the participants. The results of the analysis of one-way ANOVA test indicated that self-assessment followed by peer assessment had an advantage over the teacher assessment technique in promoting both pragmatic and organizational competence. In general, the obtained results yielded support for the employment of alternative methods of assessment as pedagogical tools to foster language competence. Implications for EFL pedagogy are discussed.