Effects Of Formative Assessment On Learners’ Motivation In Higher Vocational College English Teaching

Assessment, as one of the most important key factors in the education system, is believedto have great effect on students’ learning process. Traditional summative assessment hasbecome powerless in testing and evaluating students’ language ability. Thus, the Ministry ofEducation demands that students-centered Formative Assessment should be served in theEnglish teaching. Motivation plays an important part in students’ English learning, soinspiring and keeping the motivation is very necessary. This situation is really evident inChinese Higher Vocational College.Based on the characteristics of higher vocational college students and the condition ofEnglish teaching through applying the assessment strategies about17weeks, the thesis is tofind the effects of the formative assessment on the higher vocational college students’motivation in learning English. The writer assesses the students’ learning process andbehaviors through the strategy of formative assessment, and finally demonstrates thehypothesis, that is, the formative assessment is very useful to the motivation in learningEnglish.During the process, tools such as questionnaires, achievement test, self-assessment, peerassessment and classroom observation are employed. And all the collected data areconsequently analyzed with SPSS19.0.By analyzing and examining the relationship between assessment and motivation and byusing some materials from teaching practice in Higher Vocational College, this study gets thefollowing research results: the positive formative assessment will have positive effects on thestudents’ English learning motivation. On the contrary, the non-proper type of assessment willhave negative effects on the students’ English learning motivation; In China, formativeassessment is more helpful to stimulate the students’ English learning motivation; In theprocess of teaching and learning, teachers should use formative assessment and other types ofassessment as an elementary to assess the students’ English learning. It is very important tohelp the students to get back the English learning motivation and give them the desire to learn English well in higher vocational college.Based on the findings, the writer puts forward some suggestions. And the aim of thisstudy is to use formative assessment and other type of assessment as an elementary to assessthe students’ learning so as to wake up their foreign language learning motivation and helpthem rebuild their learning confidence.