Theoretical Construction Of A Humanistic Assessment Model For Promoting Senior High School Student' Development

The foreign language teaching assessment is a process of gathering information for making decisions on teaching plan,classroom teaching as well as students' knowledge, abilities and qualities,etc.It is an integral part of the foreign language teaching and learning.According to different objects that are assessed,it can be divided into assessment of students,assessment of teachers and assessment of school administration.In this thesis a new model of promoting students' development would be proposed based on the assessment of students.One of the principal objectives of the reform of the English language curriculum is:to establish a diverse and open assessment system for the English language curriculum so as to make assessment an integral part of language teaching and learning.The reform of assessment system is an important part of the reform of the English language curriculum.What's more,a scientific assessment system plays a significant role in promoting the students development.However,influenced by the traditional education and views on talent,the present assessment system in China mainly relies on summative assessment and the testing result is regarded as the only criterion to evaluate the learners in English language learning.Thus it prevents the students from bringing their initiative and creativity into play and brings a negative influence to classroom instruction,leading to the result that all the instruction activities work for what will be tested.The English class only pays attention to transferring knowledge rather than building up the students' practical competence.As Puhl (1997,cited in Luo,2001:i) claimed,we cannot change the teaching methods and processes unless we change the ways of assessment.Thus the construction of a theoretical assessment model aiming at promoting students' development is of great value.The author has done a study in which four middle schools of Shandong are as samples,a total of 160 students and 40 teachers were chosen for the survey,there exist four problems of students' assessment in senior high school according to the result of the questionnaires:1) the content of the traditional assessment is restricted to language knowledge and language skills,2)the method of the assessment mainly relies on the written examinations,which is examination-oriented,3) teachers are the main exacutives in the student assessment.Students take it for granted that their teachers are the authority in their assessment and they only receive their assessment passively,4) the assessment pays more attention to the summative assessment,neglects the students' affect.Because of these weak points of traditional assessment,the author decides to construct a theoretical assessment model of students.An assessment from the perspective of humanistic educational thoughts should clarify the objectives of assessment first,the objectives of assessment include not only language proficiency that is advocated in traditional teaching,but also learning strategies,affective attitudes,cultural awareness,etc. The learning strategies and the affective attitudes will play an important role in both improving students' learning and cultivating their life-long learning abilities.The cultural awareness is essential for students to enhance their humanistic qualities,and then the author proposes the principles of assessment,pays more attention to the diversification in the contents and methods of assessment,the main content and criteria of the new model is pointed out,finally,a new students assessment model is constructed.This thesis consists of 6 chapters.It begins,in Chapter 1,with an introduction of the research background of the study and the significance of the study.Chapter 2 provides an overview of the historical and contemporary issues related to educational assessment in western countries and in China,and defines some terms and concepts relevant to the present study,Chapter 3 expounds humanistic psychology and its characteristics,which influence the foreign language teaching,Chapter 4 discusses the weaknesses and problems of traditional assessment system,Chapter 5 proposes students assessment model from the perspective of humanism,which emphasizes the combination of formative assessment and summative assessment,thus it can promote the senior high school students' full development from the aspect of language knowledge,language skills,learning strategies, affective attitudes and cultural awareness.Chapter 6 draws the whole thesis into a natural conclusion.Several points are discussed in Chapter 6 for special attention.