Much attention has been devoted to the positive effects that instructor understanding of the principles and practices of sound assessment can have on learning outcomes and measurement of these outcomes. However, less has been written about the potential benefits of increasing students' understanding of assessment. This paper describes exploratory focus group research conducted with students and instructors of Arabic as part of a project to develop an oral proficiency assessment training resource for this audience. Focus group discussions in response to broad questions eliciting needs and desires for such a resource showed areas of mismatch and areas of overlap between instructors and students regarding beliefs about assessment and language learning. In the context of research on student motivation and the importance of assessment in the learning process, findings suggest that promoting understanding of assessment among language students could support and clarify language learning goals, and thus improve students' overall assessment and learning experiences.