Realigning English Language Teaching and Assessment through Pedagogy, Technology, and Purpose

Abstract

“Tobeornottobe” has always been the question; for scientists, educationists, philanthropists, and the like. Even in the domain ofELT (English Language Teaching), whether teachers can be good assessors, whether students themselves should be given the liberty for peer evaluation, whether technology can become an aid to assess – these are some of the most pertinent questionsthatconcernbothteachersandstudentsinthe21stcentury.ELTexpertshavediverse opinions on these issues and so, one also has a plethora of theories to validate from. However, what truly matters for an English teacher is the curation of a distinct class room experience that matches with the expectations of her learners. This classroom experience is indeed a composite whole of learner-centric pedagogies that have the ability to transform themselves from andragogy to heutagogy, given the context of technology-assisted classroom dynamics. Therefore, this paper is a modest attempt to examine the limitations of traditional mechanisms of assessment and thereby, pave the way forAI-led assessment in an ELL (English Language Learning) environment.