The Application Of Formative Assessment In Teaching English Reading In Senior High School

Educational assessment is considered as an essential and significant element in English teaching and learning.And whether the effective educational assessment is adopted in teaching has a great influence on the students’ performance and the teaching quality.With the development of education reform,the traditional assessment of classroom teaching can not satisfy the demand of students’ internal development.Thus,the assessment method in English class must be improved and diversified.The New English Curriculum in 2001 points out that “In English teaching process,formative assessment should be used as the main assessment.English teaching should focus on training students’ active learning and build up students’ learning confidence.” Formative assessment puts more emphasis on the process of learning and teaching rather than the outcomes.English reading is a basic skill for students to learning English well.When the importance of English reading has been stressed in senior high school,the teaching of English reading is still not effective and satisfactory.Most of students are afraid of English reading and have not form good reading habits.Based on the above situation of English reading in senior high school,the study of applying the formative assessment in teaching English reading has been designed and conducted in order to improve senior students’ learning attitude and self-confidence,form good learning habits of English reading and promote their English reading ability.Meanwhile,in the teaching practice of English reading,this study aims to explore effective ways of formative assessment in teaching English reading in senior high school.The author of the thesis applied formative assessment in teaching English reading and conducted an empirical study in senior high school in order to prove the positive effect of formative assessment used in English reading teaching.In this study,the subjects are 84 students of two B-level classes of Grade Two from one senior high school in Ganzhou City.Students of Class 1 belong to the experimental class,in which the formative assessment is applied in English reading class.Students of Class 2 work as the controlled class,in which the traditional assessment is applied as usual in teaching English reading.In the process of the formative assessment research,observation,questionnaire,interview,portfolio,self-assessment and peer-assessment are used.The statistic software SPSS 17.0 is used to process all the data collected in the study.Through the teaching practice of English reading and the empirical study in the whole semester,the students of the experimental class have made much greater progress in their English reading ability than those of the controlled class.The results prove that the formative assessment has positive effects on senior students’ reading ability.That is,(1)formative assessment can improve senior students’ learning attitude towards English reading;(2)formative assessment can improve senior students’ learning habits of English reading;(3)formative assessment can improve senior students’ cooperative learning in English reading;(4)formative assessment can facilitate senior students’ readnig ability.Based on the formative assessment theory,this thesis introduces formative assessment into the English reading teaching in senior high school in order to explore the more effective way of assessment in the English reading class and provided with some practical suggestions for the further study.Due to the limited theoretical knowledge and practical teaching ability of the researcher,this study of formative assessment applied in teaching English reading needs further improvement and development so as to guide and promote the ongoing Egnlish teaching reform.