Abzhanova, Aizhan2020-08-102020-08-102020-05-29http://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/4860Kazakhstani STEM (Biology) teachers' assessment practices in the CLIL classroom The educational system in Kazakhstan has undergone a number of changes such as the implementation of trilingual education, an updated curriculum alongside the transition into a criteria-based assessment system. As set by the trilingual policy, biology is one of the STEM subjects that is taught in English through the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach. Since CLIL has a dual focus, language and content, one of the problematic aspects is assessment. It is, therefore, essential to investigate how STEM teachers assess learners, whether they assess content or language, which language they use and how they are capable of assessing through a criteria-based assessment system. This qualitative single case study aims to both investigate the assessment practices of CLIL biology teachers in Kazakhstani secondary schools, and analyse their challenges with balancing content and language, alongside their language preferences while assessing students through CLIL. In this research, four trained biology teachers were interviewed and one of their lessons was observed for two weeks. The findings showed that 1) biology teachers are familiar with different assessment strategies and tools as they had more than 20 years of teaching experience, but have negative views towards criteria-based assessment due to a lack of understanding of how to assess students through CLIL; 2) language-wise, the teachers meandered between the use of L1 and L2 when assessing learners since they did not focus on language goals; and 3) teachers prioritized content over language as they had challenges with assessing the language due to the limited language proficiency of both teachers and learners. The results of this study can be valuable for practitioners, researchers and policymakers. Gaining an insight into teachers’ views and practices might allow policymakers to improve the existing system of assessment by providing teachers with the guidelines and policies for CLIL and assessment in multilingual education.en-USAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesCLIL; assessment practice; biology teachers; trilingual education; KazakhstanMaster's thesis