| According to the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2017),students’ learning processes should be paid attention to and a variety of assessment methods should be used to assess students’ learning outcomes.Thus,the combination of formative assessment and process writing approach plays an important role in guiding the implementation of English writing teaching in high schools.However,the actual impact of English writing instruction in senior high schools falls short of the curriculum standards.The following are the main problems: the writing process is ignored and the result is emphasized,a single assessment method,the summative assessment is mainly used,a lack of interest among students in English writing,resulting in the students’ poor writing ability.To solve the problems,action research showed in this thesis was implemented with a focus on integrating formative assessment and process writing to improve the effects of classroom writing instruction and students’ writing skills.This action research,referring to the previous studies and based on constructivism theory and multiple intelligences theory,was done within a semester.The author used the FLTRP textbook as the reading material before writing and took 24 senior two high school students from class 2Grade 2 in Guiyang Zecheng Senior High School as the research participation to conduct two phrases of action research.During the initial stages of this research,a questionnaire and a writing pretest were used to assess students’ interest and attitude towards writing,their writing habits and strategies,and their current writing performance.Based on this,two research questions are posed:(1)What changes does the implementation of formative assessment and process writing instruction produce on the students’ attitude,interest,writing habits and strategies in their writing?(2)What progress do the students make in their English writing skills after the application of formative assessment in English process writing teaching?The first phrase of action research was conducted after the research questions were determined.Following the first phrase of action,the action plan was modified in response to the students’ feedback on the use of formative assessment and analysis of their writing works in English process writing.In the second phrase of action research,the English practical writing task of the joint examination of Guiyang City was taken as the post-test,and the writing results were analyzed.A second questionnaire survey and an interview were conducted to determine whether the application of formative assessment in process writing instruction has an impact on students’ writing interests,attitudes,methods,and strategies,as well as on their English writing abilities.The research findings demonstrate: firstly,the formative assessment in this action research has produced positive changes of some aspects:the students’ awareness of the writing process has been raised,writing habits and strategies,but there was no clear evidence to show increase of interest;secondly,the students have improved their writing skills in language use,writing content and writing structure,which has enabled them to improve their overall writing ability.The research also gives some pedagogical implications: first,the teacher should ensure students to understand the concepts of process writing and formative assessment;Second,teachers should be patient about students’ learning process;third,teachers should pay attention to the feedback received from students after the implementation of the teaching program in order to adjust the teaching.This research also puts forward a research suggestion: in the background of high school education and compulsory education,the assessment methods of English learning skills should be different.In addition to writing,there are a number of other skills,such as reading,listening,and speaking,formative assessment should be explored in conjunction with the teaching and learning of these skills. |
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