A Study On The Formative Assessment In Senior High School English Teaching And Learning

Assessments are ways of evidence that are intended to determine the levels of students and the effectiveness of teaching. It is an essential part of teaching to examine and assess the students'achievements. It is the assessment of teaching effects. If we neglect the results of assessments, the whole teaching activity will become a process that has only a performance but not a feedback. Thus, it is hard to foster students'learning responsibility and arouse their learning enthusiasm. Because of the effect of pursuing to enter a higher school one-sidedly, the assessment in English teaching has basically continued to use the traditional way of assessment—summative assessment, i.e. it mainly assesses the result of students'learning.To a certain extent, summative assessment ignores the assessment on students'creativity and subjectivity. It has led our English teaching and learning into an odd"examination-oriented education"circle. Our nation's Compulsory Education Reform Essentials of English Curriculum proposes that the current assessment mechanism be reformed, a new assessment system which accords with the demands of quality education should be established to promote constant development of the students, the unceasing progress of teaching and learning and steady improvement of the curriculum. Now the assessment reform experiments, which focus on formative assessment, have been carried out in many primary schools and middle schools all over the country.The formative assessment focuses on all kinds of students'authentic learning activities and tasks. Its purpose is to find out language aptitude of each student, improve and strengthen students'learning methods and provide feedback for teachers. According to the General Senior Middle School English Course Criteria,"teachers should promote the combination of summative evaluation and formative evaluation and attach importance to the learning process as well as the final result. And evaluation should be primarily formative."This thesis is an attempt to make further researches on the formative assessment of EFL students from aspects of theory and practice. It first points out that we have fallen behind in the research of the formative assessment, thus can not meet the need of the reform in the new curriculum and assessment in teaching practice. From the angle of classroom teaching practice at Senior High School, this thesis attempts to bring English teaching theories and students'effective learning into a perfect harmony.This thesis looks backs to the origin of the educational assessment and the present research on it at home and abroad. It also inquires into the theoretical basis of the pedagogy and psychology of the formative assessment in terms of multiple intelligence theory, cognitive and meta-cognitive psychology and humanism and constructivism ideology. These advanced educational ideologies indicate the macro directions to the formative assessment reform.Through the formative assessment experiment, the thesis puts forward a systematic and open-ended design model of formative assessment characterized by"diversity". It concludes that formative assessment has its incomparable advantages. It can promote the students'ability to grasp English knowledge, improve their language skills, and encourage their positive emotions and attitude toward English learning. It can also develop their cooperative spirit, cultivate their ability to study independently, and make the students develop all-rounded and harmoniously. Finally, the author believes that formative assessment has its inherent weaknesses, but they can be rectified in the course of practice and has a prosperous future.