| As an important part of educational practice, assessment has become a major field of education research ever since the 1930s. Although traditional summative assessment is important and necessary, its side effects have become more and more obvious, such as overvaluing the cultivation of techniques in taking exams, failing to bring the initiative and autonomy of learners into full play. Formative assessment, as a result, was put forward and has been discussed and studied by many researchers at home and abroad. However, previous studies on formative assessment were mainly conducted in the field of elementary and secondary education (Tang& Zhang,2007), with only a few of them focused on college English teaching. Consequently, the roles of formative assessment in college English teaching have not been fully investigated.Given such research gaps, this study attempts to explore the role of formative assessment in college English learning, and its influence on students'strategy use, motivation, affect and attitude towards English learning. It is aimed at answering the following questions:(1) What is the effect of formative assessment on college students' meta-cognitive strategies in English learning? (2) What is the effect of formative assessment on college students'learning motivation in English learning? (3) What is the effect of formative assessment on college students'learning affect and attitude in English learning? (4) What is the relationship between formative assessment and the academic performance of college students in English learning?Participants in this study were 105 sophomores from Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Before and after the experimental teaching, a questionnaire was delivered twice and two tests were administered. Then the result of the questionnaire and their academic achievements in two tests were processed in the computer and analyzed by independent sample t-test with the help of SPSS 10.0 for Windows. This study has found that the application of formative assessment is helpful for college students to master meta-cognitive strategies, to strengthen learning motivation, and to form a positive affect and attitude toward English learning. The study also shows that formative assessment can promote students'learning ability as well as their academic performance. This study concludes that formative assessment plays a positive role in improving students'academic performance, and is applicable to college English teaching in the Chinese context. A good combination of formative assessment and summative assessment may help to produce fair and impartial evaluation and help students to improve themselves in English learning.
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