A Study Of The Application Of Formative Assessment In Primary School

The New National English Curriculum Standards states that increasing student’s interest on learning English is the major task and goal of primary school English education.The new curriculum reform of primary English education points out that classroom assessment should mainly focus on students’performance in class,which includes the behavior,the enthusiasm,the experiential emotions and the process of thinking and exploring in teacher-student interaction,independent learning and peer learning.Assessment is a crucial part of English curriculum.A scientific assessment system is the key to achieve the goal of English curriculum.Formative assessment,as a rather new concept is called for daily English teaching.Formative assessment is one that leads students to improve their learning and teachers to improve their teaching.Domestic and foreign researchers have done a massive research about formative assessment,including the definition,the characteristics and methods of formative assessment,which is based on high school students.This thesis chooses primary school students as subject,tries to find the correlation of formative assessment and their English learning interest,and investigates the current status and problems of formative assessment in primary school.This thesis employs questionnaire study,teacher and student interviews.Two main research questions are addressed:1.How is primary English teachers’use of formative assessment now?2.Is there a correlation between formative assessment and students’learning interest.And how is it?After a survey and interviews of 50 primary school English teachers from Wuchang,it is found that teachers now have some basic knowledge about formative assessment,but lack of the practical experiment.Besides,after experimenting formative assessment on 50 students from a primary school in Wuchang,Wuhan,and comparing their learning interest before and after the experiment,it is found that in primary English education formative assessment is notably related to students’ interest of English learning,especially on their pleasure,devotion and learning desire.Besides,Thus,this thesis tries to propose some suggestions on formative assessment in primary school,including the subject,the content,the language and the methods of assessment,thus hoping to improve primary school teachers assessment strategies and increase student’s English learning interest.