The rating process of students’ writing has been a long-standing concern in L2 large-scale standardized and classroom-based assessment. Several studies have tried to identify how the raters make scoring decisions and assign scores to ensure validity of writing assessment. The current paper addresses the issue of writing assessment practices of Ukrainian university teachers, how they approach rating scales and criteria with an attempt to understand culturally specific challenges of teachers’ writing assessment in Ukraine. To investigate the issue, this study employs the analysis of the survey results obtained from 104 university teachers of English. The survey consisted of 13 questions that provided insight into current practices in assessment of writing, such as frequency of assessment, use of rating scales, rater’s profile, criteria of assessment, feedback and rewriting, training in assessment of writing. The survey responses show that assessment in Ukraine is not regulated by common standard, and thus the approach to students’ writing assessment is often intuitive. A frequent practice is that teachers tend to rely on errors – as observable features of the text – to justify their rating decisions, Consequently, by shifting focus onto the surface features of writing, grammar mistakes in particular, the teachers underrate such criteria as “register”, “compliance with textual features” and “layout”. Additionally, the data reveal contradictory findings about writing assessment literacy of the teachers questioned. Even though most teachers claim they apply scales while rating, many confess they cannot tell the difference between holistic and analytic scales. Moreover, the results indicate that feedback is not yet a meaningful interaction between a Ukrainian teacher and a learner. Therefore, the results of the study demonstrate the need for the improvement in writing assessment practices, which could be achieved through providing training and reorientation to help Ukrainian teachers develop common understanding and interpretation of task requirements and scale features.

The CEFR and the Companion Volume to the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001, 2020), as the main language policy documents in Europe, intend to improve the standard of language teaching, learning and assessment. These documents among other things proclaim students’ diverse linguistic repertoire as an asset in the language classroom. In this light, the promotion of multilingual education initiatives and enhancing students’ plurilingualism is an educational requirement. Teachers, language teachers included, are seen as agents of change who can foster multilingual approaches in their language classrooms (Krulatz et al., 2022). Although previous studies have found that many language teachers hold favourable views on multilingualism, they face challenges when implementing multilingual approaches in the (foreign) language classroom. Teachers’ beliefs on multilingualism in (foreign) language teaching and learning and how these impact their teaching practices have not been investigated in the Ukrainian education context, which has always been multilingual. The purpose of the article is to share and discuss the results of a quantitative study designed to investigate Ukrainian teacher beliefs in learning English and whether these beliefs are reflected in teaching practices. Data were collected using an online questionnaire administered to 73 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers from 12 Ukrainian universities. The research questions were ascertained using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis. The collected insights helped to identify areas that require a more careful consideration in the multilingual education in Ukraine. The outcomes reveal complex and uneven relationships between teacher multilingual beliefs and the implementation of multilingual practices in EFL classrooms in Ukraine, with discrepancies in their perceptions and practices. The main finding suggests that the majority of Ukrainian language teachers have a favorable perception of multilingualism, yet they lack the required expertise and confidence to effectively build on their students' linguistic resources in teaching English. In addition, there are some critical gaps in teacher understanding of fundamental concerns about multilingualism. Suggestions will be made for a scenario-based approach to a teacher professional development course.

Background: The chapter argues that building critical thinking skills and enhancing students’ cognitive processes has become a primary goal of teaching in secondary schools. It is generally agreed that the relationship between learning and reading literature has always been very close. Also, literature is widely recognised as an effective, motivating and enjoyable facilitator for work on critical thinking skills through challenging students’ cognitive processes by means of comparing and contrasting of and differentiating between the specific events of the plot, analysing main characters, interpreting the meaning created by the author’s choice of words etc. For these reasons this chapter investigates the efficacy of literary texts in building critical thinking skills in secondary schools. Purpose: The main focus of the chapter was on designing effective and feasible critical thinking model of teaching instruction that incorporates literary text in EFL classroom to stimulate students’ cognitive processes. Results: Many methods have been suggested to teaching reading literary texts. For the purpose of this study the authors adopted personal growth model developed by Lindsay Clanfield. The model draws heavily on learners’ involvement in reading with the aim of explaining the implied message of the literary text through employing crucial critical thinking skills such as problem solving, decision making, interpretation, logical reasoning, and metacognition. The critical thinking model consists of the three stages defined as “challenge – comprehension – reflection”. Each of the defined stages focuses on utilising some of the six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning objectives through activities that promote these cognitive processes. For example, to complete activities of the ‘challenge’ stage students rely heavily on their knowledge; cognitive levels of comprehension, application and synthesis are essential at the ‘comprehension’ stage; finally, at the ‘reflection’ stage students are involved in evaluation ideas of moral and social aspects discussed in the text and appraising of their acquired experience. Drawing on this conclusion, the article presents a practical implementation of the model with the focus on cognitive processes and development of critical thinking skills in teaching English through literary texts. Discussion: In further research, it is necessary to experimentally verify the effectiveness of the critical thinking model in building critical thinking skills through literary texts in EFL classes.

Due to migration and job-related mobility, the communicative effects of globalisation and multilingual societies have become the norm in Europe. Considering the need to respond to the diverse social groups on the educational level, the Council of Europe’s language policy goals are oriented toward plurilingual and pluricultural learner groups (Council of Europe, 2020). The purpose of this paper is to present a thematic literature analysis in order to establish the framework for the project titled «Insights from the CEFR: Multilingual Education and Assessment,» which received funding from the Volkswagen Foundation. The CEFR (Council of Europe 2001) and its Companion Volume (Council of Europe 2020) are cornerstones of this thematic literature analysis. This article aims to present our conceptual understanding of important terms, which will guide our future exploration. Additionally, it analyzes multilingualism in the Ukrainian context, taking into account its multilingual sociocultural realities and language education policy. The study examines the objectives of plurilingual education, with a specific focus on the Ukrainian context, and explores approaches that can be employed to incorporate plurilingual perspectives into language teaching. This progress report is intended to contribute to multilingual teacher education, making teachers aware of their learners’ linguistic resources and the approaches that promote (multi)plurilingualism.