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It is by now well established that teacher characteristics play a major role in the way high stakes tests impact education (Alderson and Hamp-Lyons 1996). What remains an open question, however, is specifying the type of characteristics that have the potential to moderate the backwash effects of tests. This study was designed to isolate the effects of teachers’ assessment literacy in moderating the washback effects of summative tests in the EFL context of Iran. A test of assessment literacy and a questionnaire on English language teaching practices were administered to 53 EFL secondary school teachers. Results show that teachers are suffering from a poor knowledge base in assessment and no matter how assessment literate they are; they do tailor their English teaching and testing to the demands of external tests. However, more assessment literate EFL teachers seem to be more likely to include non-washback practices in their English teaching. The implications for teacher training and teachers’ professional development programs are then discussed

Needs analysis as an integral part of evaluative review of English materials, mainly textbooks, requires giving sufficient attention in all English language learning contexts. This issue seems to be more demanding in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts where the textbooks are the main sources of input for the learners. However, in some cases, this important factor is excluded entirely or at least limited to the ideas of major stakeholders. This article reports on the findings of a study conducted to evaluate an English textbook (the third-grade high school English book), which is being used in all state high schools in Iran by using a needs analysis framework. First, the needs analysis questionnaires were administered among 180 third-grade female high school students for whom the textbook was designed. Having investigated the students' perceived foreign language needs, the researcher then used it as the basis for evaluating the textbook. The results of the textbook evaluation revealed that although all language skills and components were almost important for the majority of the students, the textbook could not fully support all of them together. Finally, it was suggested that the textbook be revised or at least supplemented by other instructional materials, so that it could be more effective for the aforementioned learners.

The present study was undertaken to explore the practicality and the effect of dynamic assessment on L2 writing ability of Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this end, 17 EFL learners divided into two groups, participated in this article. Then, dynamic assessment procedure was done in three steps, topic-choice, idea-generation, and macrorevising. All these steps ran with the mediation of the teacher and also the learners together. The results of the study indicated that dynamic assessment significantly influenced participants' scores, enhanced their writing ability, and illustrated that experimental group's dynamic assessment scores were generally higher than the control group's scores. The results of the learners' interview assured that dynamic assessment could improve the learners' EFL process writing and their writing confidence. It also elevated their motivation in their writing ability.Consequently, the present study attempts to find answers to the following questions:Research Question 1 (RQ1): Is dynamic assessment useful for foreign language learners' process writing? Research Question 2 (RQ2): What is the effect of dynamic assessment if it is a useful way for assessing EFL learners' process writing? Research Question 3 (RQ3): How do the participants of the study view dynamic assessment process? Research Question 4 (RQ4): What is the effect of dynamic assessment on the topic-choice stage of writing development? Research Question 5 (RQ5): What is the effect of dynamic assessment on the idea-generation stage of writing development? Research Question 6 (RQ6): What is the effect of dynamic assessment on the macro-revising stage of writing development?