Foreign Language Teachers’ Assessment Practices in French-Speaking Belgium’s Upper Secondary Schools: A Case Study

Foreign language classroom assessment practices are a mystery, at least in Belgium. The present case study aims at shedding light on Belgian foreign languages teachers’ assessment practices in secondary education. I interviewed seven teachers to know what they assessed and how often they assessed it. I also analyzed the legal provisions that teachers have to respect when they assess. The results show that teachers assess four communicative skills—listening, reading, writing, and speaking—as legally required, but also reveal that they frequently assess vocabulary and grammar, sometimes in ways that are not permitted. Furthermore, they spend a considerable amount of time assessing those skills without even being aware of it. Since these assessments only aim at verifying that the students master the skills, it may be worth investigating whether some assessments are not redundant so as to devote that time to a more productive task.