Adult Language Learners' Experiences With a Mandatory Assessment Protocol: Policy Aspirations and Empirical Findings

• In Event: Adult Literacy and Adult Education Roundtable

Abstract

Documenting learners’ perspectives in the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program is especially timely after the mandatory implementation of portfolio-based language assessment (PBLA), which brought changes to how language teaching and learning among adults in the program is envisioned, enacted, and experienced. In this exploratory mixed-methods study, LINC students from two schools responded to a Likert survey (N=135) and participated in semi-structured interviews (N=13). Using learner autonomy as a theoretical framework and grounded-theory-driven analysis, quantitative measures indicate relatively high student satisfaction with their LINC experiences; yet open-ended comments and interviews revealed limited uptake of PBLA metacognitive expectations, or increased learner autonomy in language learning. This paper focuses on learner experiences related to PBLA goals of increasing learner autonomy.

Authors

• Jennifer Burton, University of Toronto

• Yuliya Desyatova, University of Toronto