The Effects Of Rubric-referenced Self-assessment Training On High School Students’ English Reading Comprehension

English reading comprehension is an important component of English comprehensive literacy,which includes students’ understanding of English literary elements and their development of reading skills and strategies.English reading comprehension occupies a large proportion of the college entrance examination,so it is particularly important for senior high school students to improve their English reading comprehension ability.In traditional teaching,reading comprehension test is regarded as the only means to evaluate students’ English reading ability.Teachers are the only evaluators and students are the test takers.In order to change this situation,this study attempted to explore a student-centred assessment method: rubric-referenced reading comprehension self-assessment(RRRCSA).Two parallel classes of a senior high school in a coastal city in southern China were selected,with one class systematically trained in RRRCSA for four months,while the other maintained the traditional teaching mode to explore the possible correlation between self-assessment and English reading comprehension.This study adopted a mixed study method,and mainly solved the following three problems through teaching experiments,analysis of the Think Aloud Protocol,class observation,interviews and questionnaires:(1)Does RRRCSA affect senior high school students’ English reading comprehension performance? If yes,to what extent?(2)Does RRRCSA affect senior high school students’ application of reading skills and strategies? If yes,how?(3)How do students and teachers perceive RRRCSA and their role in the self-assessment process?The results of this study are as follows:(1)The comparison of test results showed that RRRCSA significantly improved the reading comprehension performance of the students in the experimental class.(2)The comparison of the two Think Aloud Protocol activities revealed that the students in the experimental class had greatly enhanced their application consciousness of reading comprehension skills and strategies,thus improving their reading efficiency.It implies that RRRCSA training enables students to practice monitoring skills to adjust their learning.(3)The results of interviews and questionnaires showed that students believed that they played a major role in the RRRCSA process: they are the test takers,evaluators,reflectors and decision makers for their own learning;the teacher also admitted that students had played a certain subjective initiative in their learning;at the same time,the teacher and the students had positive comments on the training of RRRCSA and addressed their wish to formalize it into English teaching.In this study,seven units of RRRCSA were designed.On the basis of summarizing the experimental experience,some suggestions were provided for this reading instruction mode:(1)Make good use of RRRCSA and integrate it into reading instructions naturally.During class,teachers should explicitly teach the reading skills and strategies from the success criteria,and guide students to use the related skills and strategies consciously and correctly;at the end of a unit,students should be provided with opportunities to self-assess their learning and set reading goals,so that RRRCSA can be fully used for informing teaching and learning to support students to achieve their goals.(2)Use a scientific rubric while considering the requirements of students’ comprehension competence in the curriculum standards when designing RRRCSA,so that the most relevant reading skills and strategies can be included in the success criteria.(3)To cultivate students’ self-evaluation abilities,educators should take students as the centre of learning,through sequential design and systematic teaching,cultivate students to clearly understand the purpose,significance and details needing attention of self-assessment,give full play to students’ subjective initiative,and enable them to effectively participate in self-assessment.