A Research On The Application Of Formative Assessment Based On Scaffold Construction In Junior High School English Reading Teaching

As one of the main components of English teaching in junior high school,the cultivation of students’ English reading ability is vital to the improvement of the integrated language ability.English Curriculum Standards for Nine-year Compulsory Education(2011Edition)puts a stress on the combination of both formative assessment and summative assessment in teaching evaluation,of which the formative assessment is attached more importance for the better development of the students.Thus,it is of urgent need to shift from“assessment of learning” to “assessment for learning”.Formative assessment,as an assessment for learning,focusing on students’ progress within the midst of instruction and learning,should be highly valued.Meanwhile,the scaffolding instruction,as a well-known teaching mode based on the Social Constructivism Theory,has gradually become one of the important research contents in the field of Second Language Teaching.It highlights the dominant status of students and the knowledge construction depending on students’ zone of proximal development in the social interactions.This study attempts to explore the effectiveness of the application of formative assessment based on scaffold construction in English reading teaching for junior high school students,and three research questions are put forward as follows:(1)What is the current situation of students’ reading learning and formative assessment in junior high school English reading teaching?(2)How can formative assessment be applied with the scaffolding instruction in junior high school English reading classes?(3)How does formative assessment based on scaffold construction affect students’ reading? And to what extent?Based on the above three questions,an experiment was carried out in a junior high school in Hangzhou for three months.Two parallel classes were chosen randomly from Grade Seven.The experimental class was taught by the application of formative assessment in the scaffolding instruction,while the control class was taught the same contents by the traditional teaching method.After the experiment,all the data of the research were collected by means of tests,questionnaires,interviews and analyzed by SPSS statistical software and Microsoft Excel.The results of the empirical study can be summarized and used to draw the following conclusion:(1)The application of formative assessment based on scaffold construction can positively influence students’ affective aspects in the perspective of reading interest and confidence,self-determination and learning autonomy as well as their collaborative awareness;(2)The application of formative assessment based on scaffold construction can improve students’ reading comprehension ability.The average reading score of the experimental class increases by 3.03 points,and compared with traditional reading teaching,the use of formative assessment in scaffolding instruction could improve students’ reading comprehension ability significantly(p=0.027<0.05);(3)The application of formative assessment based on scaffold construction enables and promotes students to make flexible use of reading strategies for better comprehension.Furthermore,in the last part of the thesis,some pedagogical implications are summarized as well as the limitations and suggestions for future research are pointed out.