Research
Research
My research examines how teachers come to assess language effectively, and what helps or limits them along the way. Much of the work on language assessment literacy has described the knowledge teachers need, yet we still know relatively little about how that knowledge shows up in real classrooms or how it develops over time. I work mostly in the Chilean EFL context, where national standards, teacher education, and the realities of public schools do not always line up.
I study what Chilean EFL teachers know and believe about assessment, and how that compares with what national standards expect of them. This work began with a nationwide study of Chilean EFL teachers and led to my article in Language Assessment Quarterly (2026), which in turn led to a follow-up study where I observe teachers in their own classrooms.
Rather than relying only on what teachers report, I observe how they assess in their own classrooms. I developed the Language Assessment Practices Observation Tool (LAPOT) for this purpose and have presented findings from classroom observations at AAAL and LTRC. Rubrics are a thread running through this work, both in my research and in the courses I teach for language educators.
Since 2018, I have prepared future English teachers in the English Teacher Education Program at Universidad Católica del Maule, and that work still shapes my research questions. I am interested in how teacher education programs, national standards, and professional development prepare teachers to assess their students, and in designing practical training that supports them in their own classrooms, such as the rubrics courses and workshops I lead for language educators through AELRC.
I am also interested in how task-based language teaching and assessment come together in practice. My work in this area includes a study of Chilean EFL teachers' views on task-based language teaching, published in ELT Journal (2025), and a scoping review, currently in preparation, that maps where task-based and classroom-based assessment intersect.
From Language Assessment Literacy to Language Assessment Capacity: A Longitudinal Examination of EFL Teachers' Classroom-Based Assessment Practices in Rural Chile
My dissertation follows EFL teachers in rural Chile over time to examine how their classroom-based assessment practices develop. I propose moving from language assessment literacy, which describes what individual teachers know, toward language assessment capacity, which also considers the conditions that allow teachers to put that knowledge into practice.
Committee: Dr. Lara Bryfonski (Chair), Dr. Margaret Malone, Dr. Lourdes Ortega
Proposal defended and approved, September 2026. Expected completion: May 2028.