7 The Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies Vol. 8, No. 2, October 2012 Foreign Language Teachers’ Attitude toward Authentic Assessment in Language Teaching Bengü Aksu Ataç aksubengu@gmail.com Suggested Citation: Aksu Ataç, B. (2012). Foreign language teachers’ attitude toward authentic assessment in language teaching. The Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 8 (2), 7-19. http://www.jlls.org/vol8no2/7-19.pdf Abstract Problem Statement: A rapidly increasing interest has been observed in finding alternatives to traditional forms of assessment in education. For at least three decades, teachers, curriculum developers and program administrators have been studying hard to identify appropriate procedures to assess the knowledge and abilities of students. The term “authentic assessment” has emerged from this need in the field of education, and can be described as “the multiple forms of assessment that reflect student learning, achievement, motivation, and attitudes on instructionally-relevant classroom activities” (O’Malley and Valdez Pierce, 1996, p. 4). Given that the topic is a relatively new and challenging one, it has been observed that to examine language teachers’ perceptions and attitude toward authentic assessment is quite important. Purpose of Study: In this study, a questionnaire which aims to determine the ideas and opinions of English language instructors regarding the use of authentic assessment has been applied and the results of the study have been presented and discussed. Method: In order to find answers to the research question “What are the language teaching instructors’ ideas and attitude toward authentic assessment in language teaching classes?”, a questionnaire which is called “Authentic Assessment Inventory for Goal Setting”(O’Malley