A Contrastive Study Of The Implementation Of Formative Assessment On Senior High School English Teaching In China And The United States

The purpose of this research is to investigate the level of implementation of formative assessment strategies on senior high school English teaching in China and the United States. Furthermore, this study analyzes the relationship of teacher’s nationality, and professional development training senior high school teachers received to the reported level of implementation of formative assessment strategies.Formative assessment is a process in which teachers continuously get feedback from students’ learning activities, provide feedback to students, and modify their instructions in order to achieve best learning outcomes. Researches have indicated that formative assessment strategies, if used appropriately and effectively in classroom, could significantly improve student performance.This thesis discusses the current researches on formative assessment at home and abroad. It also inquires the theoretical foundations for formative assessment, including social-constructivism and mastery of learning. The subjects of this study are senior high school English teachers and students in China and the US. This study adopts a mixed-method of qualitative, in the form of open-ended questions and interviews, and quantitative, in the form of questionnaire based on the Likert Scale.The study found that the overall level of implantation of formative assessment strategies in China is lower than that in the US. Teachers who had more professional development training on feedback and rubric showed a strong correlation with the use of formative assessment strategies. It is hoped that the result of this thesis could provide some implications to educational administrations, school leaders, and English teachers.