Promoting Students To Become Autonomous Learners By Applying Performance Assessment In ELT

English teachers tend to apply summative assessment to judge learners' language learning competence and teachers' teaching effects in ELT. Although the information conveyed by summative assessment which is widely adopted as a major assessment means in ELT at present is widely and commonly accepted, it deviates far from truth, because this assessment means judges learners' language learning competence and ELT quality and outcomes only by the scores learners achieved in examinations. Summative assessment is an assessment means in EXT that takes place at the end of a term, grade level, or a course of study, and is used to provide information about how much learners have learned (i.e. a status report on mastery or degree of proficiency, according to identified learning outcomes). Obviously, there are many disadvantages and defects visible of this assessment means that can't meet the needs of modern English learning and teaching, and even hinder the process in ELT.While traditional assessing methods, to a great extent, ignore students" interests and creativity in English language learning, which is harmful to the reform of foreign language teaching methods, teaching contents and corresponding competition mechanism, performance assessment brought forward as opposition to traditional assessing methods places a close eye to students' various authentic learning activities and tasks, such as written and oral communicative skills, various problem-solving activities etc. Performance assessment is a kind of assessment conducted in the process of teaching and learning, the aim of which is to guide teaching process conducted in the right and complete way. It is a two-way activity: on the one hand, it provides learners with helpful feedbacks; on the other hand, it can provide the community that learners belong to with helpful information, which in turn helps school, parents and community cooperate to promote learners' progress. Performance assessment puts special emphasis on the technique of deriving learners' language learning information from their daily performances. By collecting the information of learners' daily study, teachers' instructions and classroom atmospheres, this greatly helps teachers to know each learners' learning state and needs and then to make corresponding decision, which in turn improves teaching efficiently. Performance assessment not onlycultivates learners' interests in language learning but also enhances their learning motivation, promotes their confidence in language learning. What's more important is that it activates the knowledge learners have learned in their mental work, collective spiritual life and their daily communication. Thus learners pay more attention to the learning process and their performances in daily study, and reflect their learning at any lime so as to make more progress.This dissertation attempts to introduce the advantages and importance of performance assessment in English classroom assessing on the basis of the theories of linguistics, especially second language acquisition, cognitive linguistics, and psychology, etc. What this thesis wants to prove and emphasize is that by employing performance assessment in assessing students' language learning, we can stimulate students' interests and eagerness and motivation in English learning, improve their desires for language learning, help them develop a correct and scientific attitude toward English learning and learning strategy and style, and ultimately help students become autonomous learners. This paper falls into six chapters as follows: chapter one, a general introduction of the present situation of English classroom assessment, a comparison between traditional assessment and performance assessment, and the goal of this thesis; chapter two, an overall description and introduction of performance assessment, which include the definition, characteristics, tools, scoring of performance assessment, and haw to plan and develop performance assessment; chapter three, the application of performance assessment in English language teaching, which will prove that performance assessment helps students become autonomous English learners by an action research; chapter four, the problems facing in adopting performance assessment and the bright prospective of this assessment method; chapter five, challenges and changes, the trend of English classroom assessment; chapter six, a conclusion of this thesis. Of the six chapters, emphasis will be put on chapter two and chapter three.