APPLICABILITY OF E-ASSESSMENT IN IRAN AS AN EFL CONTEXT: FROM FANTASY TO REALITY

Language assessment, in line with theoretical changes in language and psychology, has undergone major shifts both in theory and practice. Unlike traditional discrete point testing that strived for maximally objective measurement procedures without reference to particular teaching and learning situations, recent approaches to language assessment have viewed assessment as an integral part of the teaching and learning processes. Emergence of formative assessment, dynamic assessment, and E-assessment could be attributed to such recent developments. Given the fact that E-assessment is the least understood and researched especially in EFL, English as a Foreign Language, contexts, the present article tries to review the underlying motives for the emergence and application of E-assessment to come up with context specific decisions over the applicability such an assessment procedure in Iran as an EFL context. The usefulness of E-assessment needs to be determined through weighting the advantages and disadvantages with reference to particular testing situations.