alternative assessment procedures in iranian efl writing classes: the washback effect and learners’ attitudes

this study aimed to investigate the washback effect of three alternative assessment procedures, namely oral-conferences, portfolios, and corpora-based feedback on the writing achievement and attitudes of iranian efl university learners. the participants taking part in the study were 156 native iranian students in a mixed reading-writing course. through the two three-month semesters, the learners were studied in terms of three experimental and one control groups. it should be mentioned that revision was a major component of the pedagogy and learners were asked to incorporate feedback into their revision processes. the findings revealed that the aforementioned assessment procedures led to a significantly better performance of the participants and created a considerable change in their attitudes.