EFL Specialist Supervisors and Teachers' Attitudes Towards the Centralized Examinations as an Alternative to Teacher–made Examinations

Abstract

Examinations are the heart of the teaching–learning process. They can be fruitful if there is a corporate responsibility between teachers and students. This study is a contribution to fostering positive attitudes towards testing through applying centralized examinations, which are a type of external examinations. This can lead to more beneficial influence on both teaching and learning strategies. This type can be used instead of teacher–made examinations at all the grades of the secondary stage as final examinations to get a fair and precise standard of all students at each governorate. To implement this study, the researcher designed a first version of a questionnaire and exposed it to a jury of (7) specialists in teaching English as a foreign language to decide the suitability and validity of its items. Then, the final version was distributed to (6) EFL specialist supervisors and (62) EFL teachers to elicit their opinions. In order to ensure a reliable result of the study, the researcher also interviewed the former director of Examining Department in the Directorate General of Education in Diyala to elicit his opinion. Then, the researcher examined a number of samples of teacher–made examinations to point out the weaknesses. The study has come up with a conclusion that both EFL specialist supervisors and EFL teachers agree that a centralized examination is the optimal path for activating the teaching–leaning process. Finally, the study ends with some recommendations and suggestions.