Opening the black box of experience in language assessment literacy (LAL) research: a sociocultural perspective

There has been a growing number of studies on language assessment literacy (LAL), particularly among teachers. This body of literature indicates that experience, together with context, is a major mediator of teacher LAL development. Nevertheless, few studies have attempted to define what experience constitutes and show how experience interacts with context to mediate teacher LAL development. It is this gap that the current presentation aims to bridge. Specifically, this presentation argues that Vygotsky’s perezhivanie is a useful analytical tool to operationalise the construct of experience in LAL research. Since perezhivanie is a unit of analysis where both “personal characteristics and situational characteristics” (Vygotsky, 1994b, p.342) are represented, it can help shed light on how the interactions between context and experience mediate teacher LAL development. Moreover, as a unity of cognition and emotion, perezhivanie offers a powerful theoretical concept to examine not only the intellectual but also the affective dimension of teacher LAL development. To illustrate the benefits of using perezhivanie to operationalise the construct of experience, the presentation incorporates some key findings from a recently completed narrative inquiry into teacher LAL development in Vietnam.