EFL TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN GHANAIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS: CHALLENGES AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

This study investigates EFL teachers’ classroom assessment practices in Ghanaian secondary schools, focusing on the types of assessment used, the challenges teachers encounter, and the pedagogical implications of their practices. Employing a qualitative case study design, the study involved 8 to 12 English teachers selected through purposive sampling from selected secondary schools in Ghana. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, including lesson plans, quizzes, worksheets, marking schemes, and samples of students’ written work. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns across teachers’ reported and observed assessment practices. The findings indicate that teachers regularly used classroom assessment to monitor students’ learning; however, their practices were largely dominated by written tests, quizzes, grammar exercises, reading comprehension tasks, homework, and end-of-unit tests. The use of formative, alternative, communicative, and performance-based assessment remained limited. Major challenges included large class sizes, limited instructional time, examination pressure, heavy workload, insufficient assessment training, limited resources, and students’ varied English proficiency levels. The study concludes that classroom assessment in Ghanaian secondary EFL classrooms needs to move toward a more learning-oriented and communicative approach. Strengthening teachers’ assessment literacy is recommended to support more valid, balanced, and pedagogically meaningful EFL assessment practices.