A Case Study On The Application Of Performance Assessment In English Class In Junior High School

Performance Assessment refers to a systematic assessment of students’ performance and comprehensive ability in the procedure of solving complex problems or accomplishing specific tasks with acquired knowledge through certain assessment criteria.Performance Assessment meets the requirements of English Curriculum Standards of Compulsory Education(2012)for assessment in English teaching in junior high school.Besides,it can better improve students’ enthusiasm in English learning and comprehensively evaluate students’ learning ability.At present,compared with foreign countries,the researches on Performance Assessment in China are still in the experimental and exploratory stage.Domestic researches on Performance Assessment mostly focus on science and technology subjects,while the researches on English subject in junior high school are relatively few and empirical researches are fewer.Based on Constructivism theory and Multiple Intelligences theory,the study attempts to explore the application of Performance Assessment in English class in junior high school.The study aims to solve three questions as follows:1)How is Performance Assessment applied in class?2)What are the effects of Performance Assessment in class?3)What are the opinions of students at different levels on the use of PerformanceAssessment?The research site is X junior high school in Nanning.This study randomly selects an English teacher and 54 students from Class 6 of Grade 8 as the subjects.On the basis of types and the definition of Performance Assessment in the relevant literature at home and abroad,this study employs a case study with Stiggins’ version as the reference.Data collected mainly through the following instruments: classroom observation andinterview on the teacher and students.The process of the research strictly conforms to the principles of research ethics and protects the privacy of participants.According to the data from classroom observation and interview,it can be found that the application of Performance Assessment in English teaching in junior high school is not effective because of the teacher’s unclear understanding of Performance Assessment and other external obstacles such as the lacking of assessment ability in students and teaching burdens from school.The study presents the following findings in the application of Performance Assessment in class: the lack of diversity of assessment types,the lack of authority and comprehensiveness of assessment criteria,the teacher-dominated assessment and the inefficiency of assessment feedback.Students at different levels have different perceptions of assessment,but they expect the various assessment tasks and the specific assessment feedback in class.On the basis of results of the study,this study deeply analyzes the causes of the situation regarding ineffective application of Performance Assessment and puts forward pedagogical suggestions for the effective implementation of Performance Assessment from three aspects: teachers,students and schools.