| With growing interest in self-regulated learning and learner-centered instruction,selfassessment has been extensively employed as a formative assessment method in language teaching.Self-assessment offers numerous benefits for students’ language learning.To realize these benefits from self-assessment,students must be able to make accurate assessments.Previous studies have found that the accuracy of student self-assessment was threatened by various factors,among which learner’s language proficiency was an important variable.However,there is a paucity of research exploring its influence on self-assessment accuracy,particularly in oral presentations.Therefore,the present study attempts to investigate the accuracy of self-assessment made by EFL learners at different proficiency levels in oral presentations and explore their attitudes towards self-assessment.Two research questions were raised in accordance with the purpose of the research:(1)Are there any significant correlations and differences between teacher assessments and selfassessments made by EFL students at different proficiency levels in oral presentation?(2)What attitudes do students at different proficiency levels have towards self-assessment?The study adopted a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative analyses.132 non-English major EFL(English as a Foreign Language)students from a Chinese university participated in the study.They were divided into three groups(high,middle,low)according to their oral English grades in the last semester,and were asked to make oral presentations and perform self-assessments on a regular basis for a semester during their English classes.The teacher distributed questionnaires in class to investigate students’ attitudes towards self-assessment.Besides,six selected students with each level two students were interviewed in order to further explore students’ perceptions of self-assessment.The results showed that compared with teacher assessments,high-level students tended to underrate their oral presentation performance;whereas mid-and low-level students were inclined to overestimate their performance.In addition,students at high and low proficiency levels were more accurate self-assessors than mid-level students.Possible mediating factors included the task difficulty,student’s academic ability and prior learning experience.The qualitative results of the questionnaire revealed that there was no significant difference among high,mid-and low-level students’ attitudes towards self-assessment.However,the qualitative results suggested that students at different proficiency levels have different views on selfassessment: high-level students held a positive attitude towards self-assessment,who focused more on the learning aspect of self-assessment;mid-level students held a neutral attitude towards self-assessment;while low-level students tended to regard self-assessment solely as a measurement tool,who harbored a negative feeling of self-assessment.These findings offer a number of implications for the employment of self-assessment in EFL classroom teaching:1)more attention and help should be given to mid-level students in self-assessment activities to facilitate them to generate more accurate self-assessment;2)teachers could guide low-level students to focus on the learning function of self-assessment and give full play to the role of self-assessment in promoting learning. |
