


































Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 3, No. 3, 2022 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

55 
 

Original Paper 

Continued Concerns with Language Assessment Practices in 

Saudi Arabian English Education  

Khalid Al-Seghayer1 

1 College of Languages and Translation, Al Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, 

Saudi Arabia 

 

Received: July 12, 2022        Accepted: August 6, 2022       Online Published: August 24, 2022 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v3n3p55           URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v3n3p55 

 

Abstract 

Language assessment, viewed as a means to help instructors guide learners in effectively and successfully 

learning a language, plays an important role in the skills, competencies, and overall language-learning 

outcomes of second-language learners. This conceptual article reviews and synthesizes current language 

assessment practices and issues in English education in Saudi Arabia. It first highlights the overarching 

features of existing assessment methods practiced in English classrooms in Saudi Arabia, after which it 

discusses the factors underpinning those assessment practices and the detrimental effects of such 

practices on the development of Saudi learners of English as a foreign language. The article concludes 

by proposing a few pedagogical practices with the potential to change current language assessment 

practices in English classrooms in Saudi Arabia. 

Keywords  

Language assessment practices, Saudi English education, Saudi EFL teachers, EFL classrooms, 

detrimental effects of language assessment 

 

1. Introduction 

As an essential component of the curriculum for English as a foreign language (EFL), language testing 

can—depending on its execution—strengthen or weaken the process of teaching and learning EFL. For 

that reason, core knowledge of language assessment and the skills used therein are necessary for the 

process of language teaching and learning and for the mastery of a target language. The growing need 

for and importance of such knowledge and skills stem from the use of such assessment practices to gauge 

language learners’ language attainment, current proficiency levels, performance, progress, and 

achievement, and to generally promote their learning of the language. In addition, language assessment 

has power and gatekeeping functions by virtue of enabling language instructors to identify their learners’ 



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needs, document those learners’ progress, and determine how the instructors themselves are performing 

as teachers. In that light, there is no doubt that language testing and language teaching are inextricably 

linked. In view of their reciprocal relationship, language testing is considered to be an integral part of 

teaching and learning and serves as a bridge between those two components of language education. 

Indeed, while Havnes (2013) has endorsed assessment as an essential prerequisite for learning, Eckhout 

et al. (2005) have argued that effective teaching also cannot be achieved without appropriate adequate 

assessment. 

Given language assessment’s strong impact on and crucial role in language teaching and learning, it is 

essential to continuously evaluate language assessment practices in national EFL curricula in order to 

ensure that classroom realities and other contextual factors do not hamper the proper implementation of 

assessment. Continuous, systematic evaluation of any endeavor of language assessment is integral to 

such curricula, particularly as a means to make projections for the future and obtain data to guide 

curriculum amendment. 

A close examination of the current practices of classroom-based language assessment in English 

education in Saudi Arabia reveals inadequate implementation and the need for immediate action to 

transform the dominant traditional, even dogmatized, types of language assessment into innovative 

assessment practices. Thus, the primary aim of this article is to survey the distinctive features shaping 

language assessment practices in Saudi Arabian English education and thereby determine which elements 

contribute to the aforementioned inadequacy. The comprehensive profile detailed in this article 

encompasses all aspects of current English testing processes in Saudi classrooms, with the hope of 

painting an accurate picture that captures contemporary assessment approaches in the country and 

justifies continued concerns about contemporary language assessment practices in Saudi English 

education. Therefore, this article’s critical analysis of those issues requires and is primarily concerned 

with the identification of real-world assessment practices in real-world EFL classrooms. 

 

2. Overview of Salient Features of Current Assessment Practices in Saudi EFL Classrooms 

Saudi EFL teachers continue to execute inefficient evaluation methods or assessment measures and 

arrangements, such as testing rote memory, knowledge of factual information, and the application of 

strict rules, instead of testing critical thinking and higher-order comprehension skills using alternative 

assessment practices that elicit linguistic behaviors. The assessment is mostly carried out using a 

summative approach that permeated the traditional form of assessment. To monitor students’ progress 

toward year-end learning outcomes (except for Grades 1 and 2 of elementary schools, where continuous 

assessment is the norm), Saudi teachers administer a final English exam that includes an oral test and a 

written test. The teachers prepare these tests according to specific schema and guidelines developed by 

the Ministry of Education (MoE). Therefore, as indicated by Almossa (2021), Saudi schools follow a 

unified system for assessment, which limits the roles they play in the developed language assessment.  



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The oral test, which assesses students’ speaking and listening skills, counts for 10% of the final 

examination grade. With no official instructions on how to administer the oral test, Saudi EFL teachers 

tend to ask students two or three easy questions and instruct them to read one or two sentences aloud 

from the course’s textbook. Accordingly, teachers do not assess students’ performance extensively in 

aspects such as fluency, pronunciation, intelligibility, and use of lexis and grammar. However, because 

of the limited time allotted for examinations and the large numbers of students in each class, Saudi 

teachers have no other options.  

My scrutiny of a number of the English tests administered to students at the intermediate and secondary 

levels revealed an unpleasant result. According to the official schema developed by the MoE, a written 

test must include questions that address (a) composition, (b) reading comprehension, (c) dialogue, (d) 

grammar, (e) information, and (f) vocabulary.  

 The composition questions require students to write essays about chosen topics. Lists of guided 

words that students can use in their writing often accompany these questions. Teachers draw 

the topics and their vocabulary lists directly from intermediate and secondary English 

textbooks.  

 The reading comprehension questions follow the same procedure. Rather than testing students 

on new texts similar to those studied in class, Saudi teachers test the students’ comprehension 

of previously studied passages in the students’ textbooks. The questions are not high level, do 

not test inference skills, do not cover wide aspects of the information presented in the reading 

passage, and often do not require a genuine understanding of the passage, as they contain 

response cues. 

 For the dialogue questions, Saudi teachers test their students on incomplete dialogue taken 

from the students’ textbooks and ask their students to complete the dialogue.  

 The grammar, information, and vocabulary questions are all fill-in-the-blank, true-or-false, 

short-answer, multiple-choice, and other selected-response formats. For these questions, Saudi 

teachers select material from grammar, information, and vocabulary exercises in the students’ 

textbooks.  

Because of this overall test design, the administered exams mainly test students’ mastery of previously 

taught concepts (Albedaiwi, 2014). In other words, as Al-Mohanna (2010) argued, Saudi EFL final exams 

do not measure genuine communicative use of English. In fact, the tests’ scope is restricted to two skills: 

reading and writing (with no provision for listening and speaking); moreover, the items intended to test 

reading and writing merely assess students’ ability to memorize, rather than their ability to read and write. 

Overall, Al-Mohanna (2010) found that Saudi EFL exams test only very basic knowledge of English, do 

not assess skill development, and do not provide rich descriptive and diagnostic information on students’ 

performance. 

 

 



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3. Factors Informing Current Practices of Assessment in Saudi EFL Classrooms  

Five factors inform the poor quality of the EFL tests administered in Saudi schools and explain the 

reasons for and the resulting consequences of these improper appraisal apparatuses. First, Saudi English 

teachers, as the agents of and most prominent figures in language assessment, often have scant training 

in the general construction and development of language tests or language classroom-based assessments 

or in the appraisal, specifically, of EFL students. Graduates of university English departments are only 

required to take one class in language testing; this class mainly focuses on theoretical issues that are 

central to language testing, at the expense of addressing practical considerations or, more precisely, 

providing hands-on opportunities to develop actual English tests that reflect both formative and 

summative assessments throughout the semester or year. As a result, most Saudi EFL teachers are 

unequipped to manage assessment methods and techniques effectively inside the language classroom 

(Rauf & McCallum, 2020; Almossa & Alzahrani, 2022); to develop tests that accurately measure students’ 

language proficiency; to interpret and explain the results of the administered tests; or, consequently, to 

make correct decisions based on the obtained results.  

Additionally, teachers are typically unfamiliar with issues such as the validity and reliability of their 

classroom assessment practices and, in particular, balancing these issues with practicality; neither are 

many knowledgeable about basic statistics and item development. In fact, teachers seem to acquire most 

of their knowledge of testing and assessment through on-the-job experience, instead of through 

preservice education (Al-Seghayer, 2021). Accordingly, Saudi EFL teachers are unaware of the different 

aspects associated with assessment and feel ill-prepared to undertake assessment-related activities, 

including preparing diagnostic, progress, and achievement tests. Moreover, they are unable to track or 

document learning over time to provide students with a strong sense of where they are, where they are 

going, and how to get there. These instructors do not integrate their instruction and evaluation as a single 

area of an encompassing web of continual classroom planning. In sum, Saudi EFL teachers are neither 

knowledgeable of measurement or language assessment, skillful in test and item construction, 

understanding of the issues involved in language tests and the consequences of test use, nor well trained 

in language assessment (Al-Seghayer, 2017).  

Al-Saadat and Al-Braik (2004) investigated this lack of training in language test construction in Saudi 

university EFL programs. In this study, 60 Saudi English teachers from both intermediate and secondary 

schools responded to a 63-item questionnaire. The results indicated that 67.6% of the participants had 

minimal training in constructing language tests. Similarly, Alsamaani (2014) surveyed 50 Saudi English 

teachers from 12 intermediate public schools in the Qassim region. The participants completed a task-

based self-critique of classroom assessment knowledge and skills, thinking-aloud protocol, and 

assessment training needs. Empirical data from Alsamaani (2014) illustrated participants’ minimal 

training in constructing language tests. Accordingly, both Al-Saadat and Alsamaani argued that more than 

half of newly employed Saudi English teachers are unqualified to design and evaluate EFL tests. Umer 

et al. (2018) asserted that developing sound classroom language assessment standards, in line with 



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modern language assessment techniques, requires Saudi EFL teachers to build up their language 

evaluation competencies and skills.  

The second factor informing the poor quality of the EFL tests administered in Saudi schools is that a 

substantial number of currently employed English teachers are graduates of colleges of languages and 

translation or colleges of arts, which specialize in translation or English literature, in which language 

testing is not a required course, and in which the program of study marginalizes observation and all 

related language-teaching practices. Consequently, graduates start their professional careers without the 

training necessary for developing adequate language tests that would inform their EFL curricula and 

pedagogies. language testing courses are not offered to graduates of languages and translation or colleges 

of arts programs despite the fact that language testing is a field of study that entails a deep understanding 

of the fundamental theories and principles of assessment in teaching English, as well as familiarity with 

basic concepts of assessment, approaches, functions, and types of assessment instruments used in English 

language instruction, as Olwi (2020) argued.  

Third, as was noted in the overview, the MoE imposes a schema that teachers must follow when designing 

written English tests, which limits their choice of test tasks. Ali et al. (2019) pointed out that Saudi EFL 

teachers do not engage in the process of language assessment. In concert with this observation is Al-

Seghayer’s (2017) conclusion regarding centralized assessment development and other related issues: 

EFL teachers should be at the heart of the national English curriculum policy planning and be 

regarded as curriculum makers rather than mere implementers. Saudi English teachers are not 

empty vessels. They have their own experiences, beliefs, and values and their practical knowledge 

is different from theoretical and pedagogical knowledge. Accordingly, these teachers are generators 

of practical knowledge, making them key agents for changing, improving, and advancing the 

English curriculum. As such, teachers should be given the responsibility for thinking about what 

suits their students best, and they should play a central role in all aspects of the planning and 

implementation of the national English curriculum. (p. 13) 

Fourth, the fear of being questioned by school administrators and supervisors about students’ poor test 

results and low proficiency levels may motivate some Saudi EFL teachers to construct exams their 

students can pass with ease. For such teachers, the number of students who officially pass the exam 

becomes a bigger concern than ensuring that students are skilled in the use of the English language. 

However, the results of these adapted tests reflect neither the students’ end-of-semester achievement nor 

their real language ability. Consequently, teaching to and learning to prepare for exams have become the 

“guiding principle” of Saudi EFL instruction, and students’ open pursuit of passing scores is a social 

reality. The students’ learning attitudes thus influence classroom assessment practices. Saudi EFL 

teachers because of such reality instead of “teaching,” are teaching “to the exam,” that is, with a high 

score in mind rather than language proficiency. In this regard, Obeid (2017) and Umer et al. (2018) noted 

that due to the perceived undesirable consequences of failure among many students, teachers are under 

strong pressure to prepare student-friendly assessment tasks.  



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The fifth factor is the popularity of discrete point tests and summative testing of students’ learning. 

Teachers focus on summative assessment and do not have enough knowledge or skill to implement 

alternative assessments. Teachers are more concerned about students’ performance on exams rather than 

these students’ performance effectively communicating in real-life situations. As a result, Saudi EFL 

teachers devote a considerable proportion of their lesson time to teaching to the test by tailoring their 

instructional content for examinations, thereby depriving students of opportunities to learn other valuable 

English language-related knowledge and skills.  

 

4. The Downside of Current Assessment Methods in Saudi EFL Classrooms  

The existing evaluation development practices of Saudi EFL contexts—specifically, inadequately 

developing and incorporating assessment procedures and techniques into EFL lessons—have led to 

educational negligence and its various negative consequences. Specifically, Saudi teachers are not using 

assessments effectively to assess students’ learning and progress, support and improve learning 

efficaciously, or facilitate better learning outcomes. Instead, the ineffective practices teachers do use 

create a long-term dilemma for teaching EFL in Saudi schools, in general, and for teaching listening and 

speaking skills, in particular. For instance, Saudi students undervalue these skills because of the small 

fraction of points allotted to them on final exams compared to those allotted to other language skills, 

which comprise up to 25% of the final examination marks, and because speaking and listening skills are 

not assessed with a written test. Hence, the significance of the English oral test has been drastically 

reduced, and its prominence has faded. 

Likewise, because students know in advance that the final exam will ask them to write an essay on one 

of the topics covered or discussed in class, they simply memorize the topics discussed in class, along 

with those topics’ specific word lists, and regurgitate this content on the exam. Thus, rather than testing 

students’ skills in authentically communicating in English, these exams test students’ memory of 

language rules and related knowledge. Furthermore, this type of decontextualized rote learning does not 

guarantee students’ understanding or develop their critical thinking or higher-order comprehension skills. 

Overall, constructing English tests in this manner fails to reveal students’ genuine ability to use lexical 

and structural items in real-life situations.  

The dominance of an “exam-oriented” culture in Saudi EFL education also drives teachers to do their 

utmost to prepare students for the final exams; thus, teachers concentrate primarily on areas and 

information the tests will cover. As a result, both teachers and students pay more attention to exam 

preparation than to actual learning (Al-Hamdan, 2014), even though the exam results do not genuinely 

reflect the students’ end-of-semester achievement or their real language ability. At the same time, the 

students’ learning attitudes, that is, their focus on high scores as the ultimate practical goal of learning 

EFL, reinforce these classroom assessment practices. Consequently, teaching and learning for exam 

performance (or “teaching to the test”) has become the guiding principle of Saudi EFL instruction with 

less time devoted to activities that will not be part of the test. This narrow focus on passing exams 



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ultimately means that the academic content in Saudi EFL classrooms is lacking. The techniques of testing 

only rote memory, knowledge of factual information, and ability to apply strict grammatical rules—

instead of testing critical thinking or higher-order comprehension skills, using alternative assessment 

practices, and eliciting linguistic behaviors—can assess only a limited number of cognitive skills and 

functions associated with memory and students’ ability to recall decontextualized information.  

In other words, reliance on rote learning leads to memorization rather than understanding. Therefore, 

EFL courses’ academic content is lacking when teaching and learning are narrowly focused on passing 

exams rather than on developing deep understanding. Moreover, it is believed that traditional testing 

techniques relying on the reproduction of memorized information fail to truly reflect actual student 

performance. Such techniques are not effective ways of testing expanding learning concepts, which 

require students to exhibit thinking skills at higher levels than they did previously. Umer et al. (2018) 

investigated Saudi EFL teachers’ construction of assessment tasks and found that most of the Saudi EFL 

teachers who participated in the study assessed their students’ memorization or remembrance of factual 

knowledge, based upon the amount of factual recall that the students could demonstrate. In addition, 

teachers tend to tailor their examination questions in accordance with learners’ expectations.  

There is another adverse consequence of the current ineffective language assessment practices in Saudi 

EFL classrooms. Most items on these English language exams constructed by Saudi EFL teachers are 

discrete point items, which provide little language input and require minimum responses, forcing students 

to choose from among a finite set of options and to write short responses to a few questions. These exams 

also include content items requiring only linguistic knowledge, in particular, knowledge of certain forms 

and structures and a narrow range of language uses. Tests conducted in Saudi EFL classrooms show that 

this kind of language assessment focuses mainly on testing static knowledge of the English language than 

on testing dynamic communicative competence. Moreover, another detrimental form of the prevailing 

approach to language assessment is that in tests of productive skills, emphasis is given to the formation 

of correct grammatical sentences; in tests of receptive skills, emphasis is placed on getting specific details 

correct rather than understanding the intention of the speaker or writer. Consequently, the scope of testing 

reading comprehension is very narrow, often involving only decoding and literal understanding, without 

regard for a wide range of writing and reading purposes and students’ possible responses to reading. 

 

5. Proposed Forms of Language Assessment and Pedagogical Practices  

Current assessment practices in Saudi EFL classrooms, primarily pencil-and-paper summative language 

achievement tests, must undergo various changes. In general, teachers and the MoE should adopt the 

following range of techniques to implement appropriate language assessment approaches, change the 

current practice of EFL assessment, and boost the pedagogical potential of assessment: 

1) Align final exams with curriculum objectives, student learning outcomes, and recommended 

best practices and make assessment practices more transparent in relation to students’ 



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proficiency levels and the teaching process, especially practices that emphasize the 

recommended communicative teaching approach.  

2) Make sure the assessment measures also employ alternative assessment practices or a variety of 

assessment batteries used to detect students’ growth and performance that are consistent with 

in-class and real-life tasks and that measure what students can in fact do with the language.  

3) Adopt a competency-based system of evaluations and tests that focuses on communicative 

behaviors. The evaluation system should draw heavily from an array of alternative assessment 

techniques that accurately assess higher-order concepts and that are part and parcel of the 

teaching process. Such techniques include quizzes, debates, speeches, descriptive tasks or 

narration, interviews, exhibits, presentations, portfolios, learning logs, role-play activities, 

conferences, group projects, written reports, demonstrations, text retelling, dialogue journals, 

self-evaluation, peer evaluation, anecdotal records, constructed-response tests, reciprocal-

teaching homework, oral production inventories, multiple-intelligence assessment menus, 

storytelling, information gap activities, posters, and other authentic testing rubrics that cover 

production and comprehension skills. Such assessments should take place within meaningful 

activities and authentic contexts that reflect real-world language use and allow students to 

demonstrate their learning in relation to practical tasks and/or situations. Moreover, 

performance-based evaluations should examine students’ functional competence by way of 

analytical and interactive exercises.  

4) Assess students by observing their engagement in classroom activities, by measuring how well 

their work meets specific criteria, and by giving them a variety of kinds of tests. The proposed 

assessment procedures should be performed over the long term instead of at a single point in 

time and should be treated as artifacts of learning accomplished through individual and group 

projects.  

5) Ensure that tests generate positive feedback and inform teacher intervention. Assessment 

procedures should also be based on the interrelation of various aspects of language, including 

grammar, vocabulary, culture, and the four major language skills (i.e., listening, speaking, 

reading, and writing), among others, to capture students’ total range of skills and abilities and 

take stock of every aspect of their language production.  

6) Conduct English proficiency tests at the end of each grade year and use diagnostic indicators to 

assist students who do not perform well on the tests.  

7) Make current assessment practices more criteria-based in order to test grammar, vocabulary, 

reading, and communicative skills. Adapted assessment measures should consider six principles: 

(a) validity (i.e., assess what students know and understand and how they perform in EFL 

classrooms), (b) explicitness (i.e., assessment criteria should be explicit), (c) comprehensiveness 

(i.e., students should be assessed in a range of contexts), (d) fairness, (e) alignment with teaching, 

and (f) practicality (i.e., the ease with which a test can be administered and scored). 



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8) Incorporate components in the employed assessment techniques that assess the discursive and 

pragmatic competencies of Saudi EFL learners as well as their intercultural competencies.  

9) Communicate assessment results with students by giving descriptive feedback, which enables 

students to identify their strengths and weaknesses.  

10) Assess non-language constructs that are part of communicative competence, including 

confidence, illocutionary abilities, voice projection, and physical performance.  

11) Create a task and performance-based assessments that require students to perform a task using 

skills learned in class to perform real-world tasks in the target language. Such assessments may 

include interviews, oral reports, role play, describing, explaining, retelling, summarizing, 

paraphrasing, categorizing, comparing, and contrasting. Tasks can range from a simple 

constructed response (i.e., a short answer) to a more complex one.  

12) Develop integrated language tests, as opposed to discrete tests that measure language skills 

individually. Integrated tests rely on authentic practices and merge language skills; they are also 

implemented during instruction and not as stand-alone language tests.  

13) Implement a portfolio assessment that involves recording learners’ progress over time and in a 

variety of modes to show the depth, breadth, and development of their language abilities. 

14) Shift evaluation practices from strict traditional testing procedures to less formal, less 

quantitative ones. 

15) Deemphasis assessment of learning in favor of assessment for learning. Whereas the former is 

administered at the end of a unit or grading period and evaluates a language learner’s 

achievement relative to the class’s, the latter assesses a language learner’s learning of a skill or 

lesson throughout the learning and teaching process.  

16) Instead of a psychometric summative assessment, apply a more formative approach, one that 

emphasizes giving feedback to improve performance and boosts language learners’ progressive 

and potential development. 

Implementing these wide-ranging proposals for quality in-classroom assessment techniques can meet the 

urgent call from current EFL professionals to emphasize inquiry, the application of knowledge, the 

stimulation of curiosity, the use of English in social and educational pursuits, procedures that require 

problem-solving, and complex thinking and language skills in EFL education. The proposed forms of 

language assessment and pedagogical practices can also foster comprehension and creativity and promote 

language activities such as negotiation, collaboration, and cooperation instead of memorization. In time, 

implementing these practices can allow the realization of the goal of developing students’ English-

language competency, which entails an ability to use the language effectively in three modes of 

communication: interpretive (e.g., listening, reading, and viewing), interpersonal (e.g., listening, 

speaking, reading, and writing to others), and performative (e.g., speaking and writing in different types 

of performance).  

 



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6. Conclusion 

This conceptual article provides a comprehensive, inclusive, aggregative picture of language-testing 

practices in EFL classrooms in Saudi Arabia. In doing so, it elucidates the reality of the major features 

of language-based assessments currently employed in Saudi Arabian English education. The article also 

illustrates that current practices in language assessment do not reflect cutting-edge or modern approaches 

to assessment, due to several factors, and need improvement in many areas. In response, more work is 

needed to develop language tests that can contribute to realizing the purpose of learning and instruction 

and help build Saudi EFL teachers’ capacity in language assessment. To that end, this article’s in-depth 

analysis can serve as a starting point for initiating change and promoting the adoption of more effective 

and efficient methods of assessment, ultimately improving teaching practices in the Saudi EFL context. 

 

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