The Future of Education

As a multi-layered process, testing requires a meticulous application; for it involves some parties, basically involving test centers, test givers and test takers. Language testing requires teacher knowledge about testing as well as teacher cognition, which is defined by [1] as what teachers think, know, and believe and the relationships of these  mental, implicit  constructs to what teachers do during language teaching in the  classroom. Considering teachers start to gain experince and knowledge during teaching practices, one can see that the seeds of cognition in language testing are sown at very early times of the profession, becoming more mature and tangible during in-service professional development. However, language testing which can be said to be a cornerstone of the curriculum  does not get what it deserves in the teaching context, for the cognition of teachers are not often challenged by their own selves. The aim of this research is to unveil the cognitions of teachers  as for their future assumptions of language testing. The research tools are open-ended and semi-structured questions asking the participants what kind of language testing they can predict about the future, and how technology can be integrated into this procedure. Content analysis technique has been used to process the raw data. The results indicate that future teachers are ready to welcome digital tools for testing, accompanied by traditional methods. The analysis revealed that the themes of feedback, assessment and motivation have emerged from the recurring codes.  Moreover, the practicality it offers as for the time span, feedback provision, and the test frequency makes online testing more preferable for ‘digital natives’[2].

Keywords: cognition, language testing, futuristic.