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

Assessment plays a crucial role in instruction. A good assessment system contributes to effective teaching and students'development. Summative assessment has been dominated in Chinese basic education for a long time. Testing is the main assessment tool and score is the solely criterion to evaluate students in summative assessment system. Such assessment which is unbeneficial to students'subjectivity, initiative and creativity turns English teaching in China into examination-oriented. Since 2001, the National Ministry of Education has launched the new curriculum reform in senior high school. One of the goals of the reformation is to build a new set of assessment system which can advance the students'interests and initiatives by emphasizing on both formative assessment and summative assessment during the students'learning process. It is advocated that various assessment tools are used by teachers to assess learners comprehensively and progressively with a view to promot learners'all-round development. Meanwhile, students as well as teachers are agents of formative assessment.Till now, the new National English curriculum for senior high schools has been implemented for ten years. In order to gather information about the current situation of the implementation of formative assessment in senior high school English teaching, the writer takes the advantage of education practice to conduct a survey among three middle schools through questionnaires and interviews: High School Affiliated to Soochow University, Suzhou No.1 Middle School and Changzhou Senior High School through questionnaires and interviews. The information is composed of six aspects: (1) teachers'and students'knowledge and attitudes toward formative assessment, (2) teachers'assessment contents, (3) teachers'assessment tools, (4) assessment agents, (5) feedback provided by teachers and (6) factors affecting implementation of formative assessment.The analysis of questionnaire data yields the following findings. First, formative assessment has been widely accepted by both teachers and students. However, most of the English teachers'knowledge about formative assessment is limited to the theory level. Second, reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammar are the main assessment contents. Teachers pay less attention to other contents like learners'cultural conscious and communication ability. Third, assessment tools are limited in use. Fourth, the assessment is mainly made by teachers. Few students become agents of assessment. Fifth, feedback provided by teachers is mainly quantifiable.The factors affecting the implementation of formative assessment found from interviews are as follows: first, the existing exam system has a great effect on the implementation of formative assessment. Second, administrative intervention makes formative assessment hard to be carried out. Third, teachers are not skillful and energetic enough to put formative assessment into practice. Fourth, formative assessment itself is not easy to implement. Fifth, the number of students in the classroom and teachers'heavy teaching loads are not good for the implementation of formative assessment.Based on the above findings, some suggestions are given: 1. In addition to its selecting and diagnosis functions, assessment should be endowed with more functions, taking into consideration not only language but also affect, strategies and cultural awareness; 2. The benefit of formative assessment should be publicized so that the whole society will accept it. Meanwhile training and guidance need to be provided for teachers; 3. Teachers need to change their ideas, open to new things, take training courses on their own initiative, and keep pace with new teaching theories to develop themselves continuously.