Abstract:
Internationally, there have been discussions on the fusion of the two domains, formative assessment and self-regulated learning. For formative assessment, self-regulation perspectives highlight important processes in how learners internalise feedback, and not simply how external agents provide feedback. Self-efficacy has also been recognised as central for feedback practices that foster learning. Norwegian teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in lower secondary school are subject-teachers, and teach students who increasingly find themselves in out-of-school activities with more exposure to the English language and opportunities for engagement. Responsive pedagogy is centred on the feedback dialogue between a learner and significant others, which addresses the proposal to embed formative assessment within pedagogy. Responsive pedagogy is defined as the recursive dialogue between a learner’s internal and external feedback processes, with an emphasis on the relationship between feedback, self-regulation, and self-efficacy. This study examines ten EFL teachers’ beliefs about feedback, self-regulation, and self-efficacy in teaching EFL. Data analyses of ten individual interviews were carried out using the constant comparative method which entailed initial, focused, and axial coding. The preliminary findings indicate that a strong focus on correcting errors overshadow the feedback needed to support learning. Preliminary results further suggest a lack of focus on dialogic feedback, and student-to-teacher feedback was undervalued. Self-regulation is a less common aspect of the teachers’ practices, and students’ age and maturity are considered obstacles to self-regulation. Self-efficacy is explained mainly in terms of students’ awareness of teacher expectations, and low expectations of student achievement are sometimes communicated. The teachers included in this study report that they facilitate few situations in which students can provide feedback for them. There is a need to strengthen teachers’ awareness of assessment practices in which feedback, self-regulation, and self-efficacy are integrated in the form of equitable learning dialogues. The fundamental setting for students’ learning appears to be an assessment culture, where exam preparation begins on the first day of lower-secondary education. The tendencies identified by this study indicate how a lower-secondary assessment culture that relies heavily on marks and examinations can have a detrimental effect on students’ learning, self-regulation, and self-efficacy. In responsive pedagogy, teachers act as mediating agents who strengthen or weaken students’ beliefs in their own abilities to achieve success.