An Action Research Approach To The Use Of Multi-Assessment In Primary School English Teaching

Teaching evaluation is an important measure to ensure the implementation of English curriculum standards,and as an important teaching link,it is not only a tool to examine teaching effectiveness and students' learning achievements,but also a tool to promote students' the overall development.Evaluation is supposed to help stimulate students' potentials,individuality and creativity,promote students' sustainable development.However,the current evaluation in English teaching is relatively unitary.On the one hand,summative evaluation method is used to check students' learning achievements according to final exams,so students' daily performances in the learning process in and out of class are ignored.On the other hand,the subjects of the current teaching evaluation are the teachers,and thus students' self-assessment,peer assessment and parent assessment are scarcely taken into consideration.This is not conducive to students' long-term development.It is now recognized that formative evaluation should be integrated into the evaluation system to make evaluation more diversified and more objective.Based on Multiple Intelligences Theory,Constructivism Learning Theory,this study attempts to conduct an action research on the application of multi-assessment in primary English teaching.In this study,40 primary students of sixth graders in Jiankou Primary School from Zhucheng,Shandong,were chosen as the participants.Questionnaire,interview,classroom observation and reflective journal were used as the research instruments.The pre-investigation shows that the arbitrary summative assessment does harm to students' learning interest and decreases their learning motivation due to the fact that their daily performances in class are not taken into consideration when their learning achievements are evaluated.This study aims to explore how to promote students' learning interest,help students develop good learning habits and improve their learning achievements by implementing the multi-assessment method in primary English teaching.During the four-month experiment,students weretold in advance that their daily performances in and out of English class would be recorded and would take up a certain percentage of the total score.Based on the data analysis of the questionnaire,observation,interview,reflective diary and tests,the following conclusions are drawn.The multi-assessment method greatly promotes primary students' motivation and interest in English learning,because they become more active and interested in participating in class learning activities.The new assessment method does help students develop good learning habits,for they begin to do more practice in English reading,listening and writing tasks.The comparison of the two tests shows that the overall English achievements have been improved.It is hoped that this study will provide a new way to assess students' learning achievements in a more objective way and help students develop sustainably.