Self-Assessment and Professional Growth in Foreign Language Teacher Education: Insights from the EPOSTL Framework

Abstract

The concept of teacher professional development is highly relevant in ensuring the quality of education delivered by a teacher during instruction and increasing the effectiveness of foreign language education. Reflective practise and self-assessment have become relevant trends in modern teacher education programmes as they help pre-service teachers assess their competencies, areas of improvement, and building professional awareness. The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) is the most popular method applied to assist the process in educating language teachers and its descriptors allow guiding them to reflect on their pedagogical knowledge, on their classroom practise, and on their language teaching competencies. In this study, I will explore the contribution made by the EPOSTL framework to self-assessment skills and professional development of pre-service foreign language teachers. The main aim of the study is to investigate how EPOSTL can be used as a reflective instrument in educating teachers and also boosting their pedagogical competence in language teaching situations. There was use of mixed-method research design which included questionnaire survey and reflective journal analysis including pre-service foreign language teachers pursuing a teacher education programme. The descriptive statistics were employed to analyse quantitative data and thematic analysis to analyse the qualitative reflections in order to identify the major professional learning patterns. The results also show that the application of EPOSTL contributes to the development of reflective thinking and the enhancement of awareness of teachers on the approaches to instruction and development of professional identity. The participants indicated that lesson planning, classroom management, and assessment practises gave them more confidence with the help of the portfolio descriptors through organised self-reflection. Another significant outcome of the study is the need to incorporate the use of portfolio-based self-assessment instruments in the curricula of teacher training to promote lifelong learning. These results warn of the fact that the systematic use of EPOSTL has the potential to help raise reflective, competent and professionally-conscious foreign language teachers. The study presents valuable educational implications to the institutions of teacher training that would like to improve the reflective learning environment and reinforce the frames of professional development in the foreign language teacher education.