An Investigation into Teachers’ Opinions about the Assessment of Four Main Skills in EFL Classrooms

An Investigation into Teachers’ Opinions about the Assessment of Four Main Skills in EFL Classrooms

Feride ACAR

Pamukkale University, Turkey

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.908000394

Received: 14 August 2025; Accepted: 21 August 2025; Published: 13 September 2025

ABSTRACT

This study investigates opinions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers regarding the recent testing and assessment implementations in Türkiye that enforce the assessment of all four language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in middle and high school classrooms. The research aimed to explore the participating teachers’ opinions, identify the challenges they face in assessing these skills, and gather their suggestions for an effective implementation. A total of 48 English teachers from 12 different cities took part in the study based on voluntary participation, responding to an open-ended survey with four questions administered via Google Forms. The data were analysed using conventional content analysis to find out key themes and frequencies. The findings demonstrated that while a significant number of teachers (f= 25) expressed a positive attitude towards the necessity of integrating all four skills by considering it important, beneficial, and aligned with communicative language teaching, they mentioned several challenges that prevented proper implementation. These included time constraints, overcrowded classrooms, insufficient technological resources, and low student readiness for speaking and listening activities. Many participants (f= 22) reported challenges in aligning assessment with curriculum demands, and highlighted the lack of flexibility in exam procedures. The suggestions for improving assessment procedures included increasing English class hours, integrating listening and speaking assessments into routine classroom activities, enhancing technological support, training teachers, and reducing curriculum intensity. The study highlights the need for systemic alignment between curriculum, materials, teaching methods, and assessment strategies to ensure fair and effective evaluation of all language skills in Turkish EFL context.

Keywords: Testing, assessment, four language skills, English language assessment, teacher beliefs

INTRODUCTION

Assessment of English skills stands out as a crucial element of language education, serving as a reflection of students’ proficiency and their progress in language learning process. It creates effects on the decisions to be made related to the content and instruction the teaching methods adopted by the teachers. It also provides feedback to demonstrate to what extent the objectives of the program have been met. In international contexts, assessment is also indispensable to provide information about the present language ability of the individuals to be accepted to the universities or workplaces.  In educational settings, the concepts of testing and assessment frequently serve as synonyms, both referring to the evaluation of student learning outcomes. However, as Rogier (2014) states, even though tests are often viewed as a particular type of assessment—typically associated with conventional exams or quizzes—the term assessment itself signifies a more expansive and inclusive approach to evaluation. Assessment includes adopting various types of tools such as quizzes, performance tasks and portfolios. Tests are generally used to give marks to students, however; the goal of assessment is to obtain progress in students’ learning (Hughes, 1992).

The shift from language-centred methods to learner-centred methods in language teaching field has also created an effect on the assessment procedures in the recent years. The integration of new pedagogical approaches and technological innovations has revolutionized the assessment of English language abilities, moving away from standard written tests to embrace more interactive formats such as computerized adaptive testing and oral proficiency interviews. These approaches aim to evaluate not only linguistic knowledge but also communicative competence of the language users in real life situations. Recent updates made in The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in 2018 can be an indicator in this sense. It presented and described different language proficiency levels from A1 to C2 with their descriptors as a contribution to have an understanding of what the language learners are supposed to do for each skill. The action-oriented approach employed by the Council of Europe has highlighted the importance of communicative aspect of language learning (Council of Europe, 2018). It has shown parallelism with the recent developments in the area of language teaching with a focus on social aspect of communication in relevance with Vygotskian Sociocultural theory (Piccardo & North, 2017). Language learners have been described as social agents acting in the plurilingual and intercultural learning contexts to (co)construct meaning and knowledge through interaction and communication in CEFR (North et al., 2022). By demonstrating the scales and descriptors that the language users are supposed to display for each level, CEFR has provided a framework also for assessing the language abilities.

Key Concepts in Assessment

While choosing or designing a test, there are some considerations that should be take into account such as “usefulness, reliability, validity, practicality, washback, authenticity, and transparency” (Rogier, 2014, p.2). In terms of usefulness, all language tests must be developed considering a specific purpose, appropriateness for a group of test-takers and covering specific language content (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). A reliable test should cover all the content, include a clear instruction, and the scores achieved through the test should be consistent when administered again. Validity, on the other hand, refers to measuring what is intended to be measured, and what is appropriate for the context and audience of the test (Rogier, 2014). A test should also be authentic by addressing real-life tasks through which the target language will be used. Transparency, which is one of the other key concepts that should be considered in choosing or designing a test, means to provide all the necessary information about the test and assessment such as the time, content and the objectives that the test addresses. In addition, a test should be teacher friendly by being practical to be developed, used and scored.

Washback effect

One of the most significant key concepts of the assessment is washback effect which can be defined as “the effect of testing on teaching and learning” (Hughes, 1992, p.1). It can be either negative or positive, depending on how the test creates an impact on instructional methods and student behaviours. When assessments are designed in accordance with effective teaching strategies, they encourage advantageous learning practices and enrich the instructional process within the classroom. When a teacher informs the students that their speaking performance will be assessed in the examination, it motivates them to have more practice to foster their speaking skills. These situations can be given as the examples of positive washback. On the other hand, exams that demand extensive preparation can result in negative washback, which can be detrimental to the overall teaching and learning experience. As Rogier (2014) suggests, focusing exclusively on test performance can result in neglecting other essential learning opportunities. When educators design evaluations with a focus on generating positive washback, they can promote authentic language learning experiences rather than limiting students to mere test-taking methods.

Norm-referenced and Criterion-referenced Tests

Norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests are two main assessment methodologies, each serving distinct objectives and carrying specific consequences for educational practices and student learning (Brown, 1996). It is essential to have an understanding of these testing methods for selecting or designing assessments that align with specific educational goals. The purpose of norm-referenced assessment is to measure an individual’s achievements against those of a larger reference group, which is typically identified as the “norm group (Hughes, 1992). As these types of tests demonstrate comparative performance, they do not indicate whether specific learning outcomes have been achieved or not. Proficiency and placement tests that enable administrators and teachers to make program-level decisions are norm-referenced type of tests.

Rather than comparing individuals to their peers, criterion-referenced tests assess performance based on a defined set of standards or criteria that individuals are expected to meet (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). The primary goal of criterion-referenced tests is to determine whether the test-takers could achieve specific outcomes or not. Thus, they provide feedback on individual achievement unlike the norm-referenced tests. Teachers can identify the areas that the students need further support in this way. Diagnostic and achievement tests which help teachers to make classroom-level decisions are classified as criterion-referenced tests (Brown, 1996). In conclusion, while criterion-referenced tests focus on what students know or can do, norm-referenced tests focus on how students perform compared to others.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Developments in the philosophy of education and current implementations within educational settings have created an effect on the assessment methods or tools adopted by the educators. In recent years, as an extension of the paradigm shift towards methodologies that are more effective for student development is likely to play a significant role in the adoption of formative assessment strategies in educational contexts as an alternative to psychometric summative assessment (McDowell et al., 2011). Formative assessment tools create opportunity of observing the students’ progress during a process. On the other hand, questions have emerged about its capacity to provide reliable findings, particularly when set alongside summative assessment practices (Yılmazer – Özdemir & Özkan, 2017). The decision of which assessment procedures to employ is based on the education system of the organizations. As Borg (2006) states, educators’ beliefs informed by multiple social, professional, and personal influences significantly impact their classroom practices and assessment methods.

In recent years, the integration of all four language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—into assessment practices has been increasingly emphasized as part of a communicative and learner-centred approach to language education (Council of Europe, 2018; Piccardo & North, 2017). However, a growing body of research suggests that teachers often face substantial barriers in implementing comprehensive skill-based assessment. For example, Afrianto and Nugroho (2021) examined EFL teachers’ classroom practices in Indonesia, and found that despite policy-level support for communicative language testing, classroom assessments remained focused on reading and writing due to limited time, training, and resources. Similarly, Rashidi and Bahrami (2019) reported that Iranian EFL teachers experienced anxiety and ambiguity in assessing oral skills, often due to insufficient institutional support and the lack of concrete assessment criteria. Jeong (2013) further highlighted how top-down assessment reforms in South Korea failed to gain traction among teachers when sufficient support mechanisms and participatory planning were absent.

When the related literature has been examined, studies that have focused on the teachers’ opinions about assessment of English as a foreign language and their current assessment practices can be seen. To illustrate, Narathakoon, Sapsirin and Subphadoongchone (2020) examined teachers’ beliefs about classroom assessment and the practices they employed in English in Thailand. 112 teachers who were teaching English in primary schools participated in the study. The data were collected through a questionnaire and interview within the study. The findings of the study demonstrated that the teachers’ assessment practices were mostly limited to involve asking questions, reading aloud, observation and studying of worksheets, role play, games, group work or translation. There was no evidence to show that they used of plays, projects, peer-assessment or student self-assessment techniques to assess their students. In addition, Vogt and Tsagari (2014) conducted a large-scale study on language teachers’ assessment literacy across multiple countries, and revealed that many educators did not feel confident assessing productive skills, especially speaking, due to a mismatch between classroom realities and standardized exam requirements.

In Turkish context, Yılmazer – Özdemir and Özkan (2017) carried out a study to investigate classroom assessment practices of instructors at tertiary level by focusing on the purpose, methods, and procedures of assessment. They also aimed to compare the context between state and private universities in their studies. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a questionnaire with the participation of 70 English language instructors working at the school of foreign languages of different universities. According to the findings of the study, assessment purposes of the teachers were categorized into three groups as student-centred purposes, instructional purposes, and administrative purposes. The participants also reported to provide verbal feedback frequently, use the materials prepared by test office of the institution for assessment, and indicated that they frequently assessed English grammar in their classroom (80%), followed by reading (%65,7) and writing (61,4%).

In a more recent study, Üner and Aşılıoğlu (2022) examined teachers’ opinions about assessment procedures in teaching English. 45 English teachers who were working in middle schools of Diyarbakır participated in the study. In this qualitative research, a semi-structured interview was used to gather data. It was revealed that the teachers were using more traditional methods in assessing English and could not carry out assessment procedures for speaking and listening adequately. They reported problems in assessment processes related to crowded classrooms, insufficient course books, and physical and technologic equipment of the schools. In the study, it was suggested that assessing especially communicational skills should be prioritized in language teaching, and the materials should be designed based on this premise and also in terms of use of the technology.

Ministry of National Education (MoNE) in Türkiye has started a new implementation through which language teachers are supposed to assess and evaluate speaking and listening performance of the middle and high school students since 2023. In this implementation, not only English teachers but also Turkish, Turkish Language and Literature teachers and other foreign language teachers have started to assess four main skills in their classes. English teachers, in this context, did not have to assess these skills before this implementation and they mostly preferred using written tests that focused on reading, writing and the use of vocabulary in English. There might be some salient factors that have caused teachers to neglect assessing listening and speaking along with other skills. As Brown suggests (2004), teachers generally focus on assessing reading and writing because these skills are easier to assess with traditional paper-based tests which are less time-consuming and simpler than assessing listening and speaking. Speaking assessments require one-on-one or group interactions, making them time-intensive and demanding in terms of teacher training and classroom management (Luoma, 2004). Listening assessments, similarly, require technical resources such as audio equipment or language labs, and these facilities may not be available in all schools (Buck, 2001). However, to achieve effective language proficiency for the learners, it is essential to incorporate all four skills, as neglecting listening and speaking in evaluations can limit students’ overall communicative effectiveness. According to Hinkel (2006), it can also create negative washback effect and demotivate students since they may consider these skills as less valuable, and fail to develop confidence in using the language orally.

In the light of these points, it is widely acknowledged that in order to create an effective language teaching program, assessing all language skills is a vital element of the process. However, as there has been a new implementation for language teachers in Türkiye, investigating teachers’ opinions and suggestions about the issue has been considered significant in order to reflect the current condition. In this study, it was aimed to examine English teachers’ opinions by focusing on the challenges they have encountered while assessing listening and speaking performance of their students in English, their teaching practices concerning four main skills, and their suggestions to solve the problems they have mentioned. In this sense, the following research questions were addressed in the study:

What are the opinions of the participating English teachers working at the middle and high schools regarding the assessment of their students’ four language skills in English?

What are the challenges the participants have encountered while assessing four language skills of their students in English?

What are the suggestions of the participants about implementing the process that incorporates assessing four language skills of their students in English?

METHOD

In this section, necessary information concerning the research model, participants, data collection tools and data analysis process are presented. 

Research Model

In this study, a qualitative research model was employed to find out the participating English teachers’ opinions about the novice implementation through which they have been supposed to assess four language skills of their students in English. As Creswell (2014, p.4) states, qualitative research “is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem”. In this context, it was considered appropriate to adopt a qualitative research design by exploring and understanding the teachers’ opinions to provide insights.

Participants

In this study, convenience sampling method was employed. The researcher tried to involve as many as participants in the study by announcing it to her colleagues in digital platforms. According to Dörnyei (2007, p.98) convenience sampling involves “selecting participants who are readily available to the researcher. This approach is often used in exploratory research where ease and speed are prioritized over representativeness.” Totally, 48 English teachers working in middle or high schools in different 12 cities in Türkiye participated in the study. All the teachers were informed about the research and participated in the study on voluntary basis. The data were collected through Google Forms and they provided written responses for the questions of the survey. Data collection process was carried out during the 2025-2026 academic years. While 11 of the participants (23 %) were males, 37 of the participants were females (77 %), and all the participants were working in public schools. Five of the participants had a Master’s degree and the other 43 participants had a Bachelor’s degree. The participants were coded as P1, P3 to ensure confidentiality. Relevant information about the participants is presented in graphs in the following graphics.

Graphic 1. Participants’ teaching experience

As it can be seen in Graphic 1, a high majority of the participants involved in the study (59%) had a total of 11–15 years of teaching experience and one participant (2%) had 0 -5 years of teaching experience.

Graphic 2. Participants’ School Types

As Graphic 2 demonstrates, most of the participants were working in middle schools (%50) and only one of them (2%) was working in an Imam Hatip High School.

Data Collection Tool

In order to collect qualitative data, a survey was carried out in online platform by using Google Forms to contact with the participants working in different cities in Türkiye. It consisted four open-ended questions which aimed to find out the teachers’ overall opinions about the implementation, their classroom practices based on enhancing four language skills, the challenges they have encountered during the process as well as their suggestions to overcome the challenges they addressed. While developing the survey, some considerations were taken into account such as using clear, simple, and concise language in questions to avoid misinterpretation and combining two ideas in one question which can confuse respondents. The researcher formed the question items based on the relevant literature and research questions, and sought expert opinion for revision. In this vein, the researcher consulted an academician with a PHD degree in the department of English Language Teaching for his opinion to determine the representativeness of the items concerning the study’s objectives. After receiving expert opinion and making the relevant changes, the last version of the items was developed. The participants responded to the items in English on a written form to prevent misconception resulting from translation. The questions of the survey are as follow:

What do you think about the new implementation of assessing and evaluating four main language skills in English classes? Please explain.

What are the challenges you encounter while assessing and evaluating four main skills in English? Please explain.

Do you think that you are able to carry out enough classroom activities to foster four main skills of English? If not, please explain the reasons.

What are your suggestions about assessing and evaluating four main skills of English? Please explain.

Data Analysis Process

In order to analyse the qualitative data collected through the survey, conventional content analysis was used. As defined by Krippendorff (2018, p. 24), “content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context”. In addition, according to Hsieh and Shannon (2005), conventional qualitative content analysis refers to an inductive approach where categories and themes emerge directly from the data rather than being imposed in advance by the researcher. This type of analysis emphasizes careful reading, coding, and categorization of textual data to identify patterns, meanings, and relationships grounded in participants’ responses. This process involves finding keywords or categories to identify patterns, counting the frequency of emerging themes and interpreting the meaning of categories and themes in context (Neuendorf, 2017). After analysing, the key themes or patterns with the frequency of the codes were summarized in tables by relating them to the research questions of the study.

FINDINGS

In this section, the findings regarding each research question are presented in separate tables. P1 was used to address the first participant who joined the survey.

Research Question 1: What do you think about the new implementation of assessing and evaluating four main language skills in English classes? Please explain.

The responses of the participants concerning with the first question of the survey were classified under two main categories as positive and negative opinions. While 12 codes were provided within the positive opinions, eight codes were found within the negative opinions of the participants. In terms of positive responses, six participants highlighted the necessity of assessing four skills (18%), and five participants (15%) considered it as useful and critical for language learning. When the codes under the negative responses were analysed, it was seen that a high majority of the participants (37.5%) underlined the time problem to assess speaking and listening skills of the students in their classes. Two of the participants also found the implementation to be a sudden change which made the process challenging and they reported that it did not align with the course books.

Table 1. Findings upon Overall Perspectives of the Participants

To exemplify the codes in the positive opinions, P4 reported: “to be able to assess the language skill, it is impossible to evaluate it with only written exam. It is so important to implement the four skills”, which implies the necessity of the new implementation to assess four skills. Another participant (P18) also provided a positive opinion by stating: “I completely support this implementation at school. Language learning should be evaluated with main skills”. The following quotations can be given also to illustrate the negative opinions provided by some of the participants on the new implementation:

“3 English lessons (135 minutes totally) per week but 4 skills to exercise and evaluation. For each skill, we have 40 or less minutes for a week. It takes nearly 160 minutes for a month for each skill. We also have some other studies to do within this time with our students, too. But how?” (P3)

“It is too difficult to assess in crowded classes” (P10)

“It is not useful and time consuming” (P23)

Research Question 2: What are the challenges you encounter while assessing and evaluating four main skills in English? Please explain.

Table 2. Findings upon Implementational Challenges of the Participants

When the responses of the participants about the challenges they encountered during assessing and evaluating four main skills of their students in English were analysed, the findings demonstrated that they reported difficulties in assessing especially listening and speaking skills as a requirement of the new implementation. A significant number of the participants (59%) considered the process as time-consuming and several of them (21%) emphasized that their students had a low readiness level and English proficiency to speak English. On the other hand, some participants handled the issue from a different dimension by focusing on hardship of preparing exams that test knowledge of the students on a specific outcome and evaluating too many exam papers. As only English, Turkish, and Turkish Language and Literature have to carry out this assessment process, it seems interesting that they found it unfair to prepare and evaluate three exams within their course when compared to teachers of other disciplines. They also stated that there was no flexibility for them in terms of the content and dates of the exams due to the common examinations organized by the MoNE. They also highlighted the challenge of conducting the teaching and assessment processes by catching the curriculum. To illustrate the reported challenges, following statements of the participants representing each code are presented:

Curriculum issues: “The syllabus, the time of exams, contents (scenarios) are all determined. Sometimes there is nationwide or city-wide exams. I feel hindered and I cannot give examples and cannot do exercises as much as students need. Lesson time in a week is not enough generally” (P12)

General Attitudes: “Hard to implement” (P9)

Student motivation: “Students are not eager and sometimes it is hard to assess objectively because they do not want to do anything in English” (P48)

Technical assistance: “It depends on technology. So sometimes something may go wrong. Also, it takes time comparing to the classical assessments” (P3)

Timing: “One of them is that we have two classes in a week so it is not suitable for assessing and evaluating for the language. In addition, we have some time issues to complete the syllabus” (P23)

Research Question 3: Do you think that you are able to carry out enough classroom activities to foster four main skills of English? If not, please explain the reasons.

Table 3. Findings upon carrying out enough classroom activities or not

As it can be seen in Table 4, responses of the participants concerning the third research question of the survey were classified under three categories. While eight participants stated that they were able to carry out practices to foster four language skills of their students, three of them stated that that could partly realize it. A considerable number of the participants responded negatively by providing the underlying reasons. The most striking code (46%) was about inadequate class hours to carry out enough practices to enhance four language skills. They also reported that crowded classrooms were another factor that prevented them to focus all the language skills in a certain level.

To elaborate on the classroom practices, P13 highlighted the biggest challenges they have encountered by expressing “I do not think. For 8th class students, the biggest challenge is LGS which is focusing only reading. For the other grades, there are many blocks such as being different levels in the classroom, limited time and crowded classes”. P22, on the other hand, attributed the hardships they have faced to personal qualifications and reported that: “I feel inadequate in this area, perhaps due to my lack of expertise. Additionally, the large class sizes and the limited number of weekly teaching hours make it challenging to address this effectively”

Research Question 4: What are your suggestions about assessing and evaluating four main skills of English? Please explain.

Table 4. Findings upon Participants’ Suggestions to Overcome the Challenges

As shown in Table 4, it was found out that the participants provided many suggestions to overcome the challenges they have encountered during the assessment process of four language skills. The highest majority of them (46%) stressed the necessity of having more classes of English as way of carrying out classroom practices and assessment as well. They also reported that they could assess students’ speaking and listening performance during the classroom activities by adopting a process-based approach. They also highlighted the vital importance of the consistency between the course books, curriculum and assessment procedures and suggested to revise the implementations in this sense. In response to the recommendations of participants regarding the highlighted issues, the following quotations are provided:

“Making written exam is necessary and applicable. But for evaluating other skills must be spread in time. Teachers must observe the students during the lessons in terms of especially speaking and writing” (P1)

“My suggestion is not related to assessing; you cannot assess what you do not teach. You cannot teach what students are not ready. I think the content of curriculum should be reduced or the lesson time in a week should increase” (P40)

“We can incorporate quick and informal assessments, such as exit tickets, mini-quizzes, or brief reflections, to gauge understanding without taking up too much time” (P13)

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This study aimed to examine the opinions of a group of Turkish EFL teachers working in middle or high schools in terms of the novice implementation for language classes which incorporates assessing and evaluating not only reading and writing, but also listening and speaking as well. The researcher examined the participants’ perspectives through different dimensions, including their general views on the process, current classroom practices, the challenges they have faced, and their recommendations for addressing these challenges.

The findings of the study demonstrated that the participants mostly held positive opinions about the new assessment implementation and considered it as an inevitable part of the language learning process. However, several participants also provided negative responses by underlying the factors that influenced their opinions in that particular manner. The most visible challenges mentioned by the participants were inadequate class hours to carry out practices that enable them to improve, assess and evaluate all language skills of their students and catching the curriculum at the same time. These findings align with global trends in EFL education, where integrating all four language skills into assessment practices has gained prominence, yet remains challenging in implementation as reported in Narathakoon, Sapsirin and Subphadoongchone’s (2020) study. And also, Afrianto and Nugroho (2021) reported in their study that despite the Ministry of Education’s emphasis on communicative competence, English teachers predominantly assessed reading and writing due to time constraints and lack of speaking/listening resources—mirroring the findings in the current study. Similarly, Rashidi and Bahrami (2019) in Iran found that although teachers valued speaking and listening assessments, they lacked practical training and faced institutional barriers, which led them to rely on traditional test formats. These parallels suggest that the Turkish context is not unique in its struggle to balance curriculum demands with holistic assessment principles.

In addition, Vogt and Tsagari (2014) highlighted that European language teachers often feel inadequately prepared to assess speaking and listening, especially when standardized tests do not match classroom realities—a concern which was also echoed by several participants in this study who emphasized the misalignment between coursebooks, curriculum, and assessment practices. This international evidence reinforces the study’s conclusion that any implementation of four-skill assessment needs to be accompanied by targeted teacher training, curriculum coherence, and technological support to foster positive washback.

Moreover, Jeong (2013) noted in the South Korean context that top-down policy changes related to performance-based assessments often fail when teachers are not involved in the policy formation or are not provided with clear guidance and support. The frustration among Turkish teachers in this study—particularly regarding lack of flexibility and clarity—underscores Jeong’s point and emphasizes the importance of involving practitioners in assessment reform processes.

The findings from this study not only support earlier research in the Turkish context (e.g., Üner & Aşılıoğlu, 2022; Yılmazer & Özdemir, 2017) but also reflect international concerns, highlighting the systemic challenges faced in the evaluation of all four language skills. A comprehensive approach that involves redesigning the curriculum, facilitating continuous professional development, and ensuring sufficient resource distribution can greatly enhance the efficacy and practicality of four-skill assessments within language education settings. There has been a consensus among the educators and experts in the field that it is vital to employ a holistic assessment approach by focusing on all the skills in language learning classrooms as what real-world language use requires (Bachman, & Palmer, 2010; Brown, 2004; Hughes, 2003; Richards & Schmidt, 2010). In order to assess a skill in an objective and fair way, teachers are supposed to create effective learning environments that will enable their students to be exposed to the target language and engage in classroom activities. If the teachers do not have adequate time to foster language skills of their students during the teaching process, it is probable that the assessment will not be carried out in a proper way and will cause negative washback effect.

The findings of this study have revealed a complex interplay between educational policy, classroom realities, and teacher agency in the context of assessing the four main language skills in Turkish EFL classrooms. Although the teachers commonly support the instructional value of assessing listening, speaking, reading, and writing, they encounter numerous structural and practical barriers that restrict their capacity for full implementation. These challenges are not isolated but reflect broader systemic issues that require coordinated and sustainable solutions. To bridge the gap between policy intentions and classroom practices, a number of recommendations have been developed based on the data collected from the participants and supported by the relevant literature as well. These suggestions aim to guide stakeholders—including policymakers, curriculum developers, school administrators, and teacher educators—towards more effective and context-sensitive assessment practices. In light of the findings of the current paper and previous research, the following suggestions can be provided:

• The pillars of education which consist of the teaching method, materials, curriculum and teaching environment should be all aligned with the assessment approach adopted by the educational system (Council of Europe, 2001).
• The number of English classes should be increased as a way to make it possible to carry out teaching and assessment practices of four language skills.
• New implementations must be put into effect after systematic needs analysis and planning procedures followed. Otherwise, teachers may face significant challenges in adapting themselves to changes and fulfilling requirements within a limited time frame.
• Teachers could be encouraged to integrate ongoing, informal tools such as observation checklists, quick oral prompts, or digital portfolios to continuously evaluate progress in all four skills rather than relying solely on summative tests.
• In a case of an update in the system, they should be provided with clear instructions for the implementations and also take part in training if necessary.
• Universities should revise English Language Teaching (ELT) curricula to include more hands-on training in alternative assessment methods, including those suitable for speaking and listening skills.
• Creating collaborative teacher assessment committees within schools can help share best practices, standardize evaluation criteria, and provide mutual support for assessment planning and execution.

In conclusion, this study attempted to provide some important insights and implications for the related literature about the opinions of teachers who act as practitioners of the new implementation. It is believed that taking teachers’ opinions and suggestions into consideration will be useful to provide contributions to the further steps.

Limitations And Suggestions For Future Research

In this study, the findings are based on qualitative data collected from 48 English teachers in Türkiye who voluntarily participated in the study. Thus, the results cannot be generalizable to all English language teachers across the country, particularly those working in private institutions or in different educational contexts. The study used only one data collection tool – a Google Forms survey – with open-ended questions. Further studies may be carried out by collecting data from multiple data collection tools such as interviews, classroom observations, or document analysis to obtain richer and in-depth findings. In addition, the study focused on teachers’ experiences and opinions at a single point in time shortly after the new implementation. Thus, longitudinal research is needed to examine how opinions and practices evolve as teachers adapt to the policy over time. In addition, a follow-up study that examines the perceptions of students and administrators on the issue can be carried out as their perspectives are also crucial for a holistic understanding of the policy’s impact.

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