The Implementation Of Classroom Formative Assessment In College Oral English Teaching

Formative assessment originated from diagnostic assessment. The studies on formative assessment dated from the 1980's in western countries. The concept"formative assessment"was first put forward by Scriven in connection with the curriculum design and teaching. There are some related researches on formative assessment in foreign countries. But in China, professional studies of this field are just underway.Formative assessment differs from summative assessment in conduction time, purposes, methods, results, feedback and other aspects of assessment. Compared with summative assessment, the purpose of formative assessment is to improve quality of students'learning. Speaking is probably the most difficult skill to test. It involves a combination of skills that may have no correlation with each other, and they do not lead themselves well to objective testing. In this research, the author tries to import formative assessment into college oral English teaching to improve oral English teaching and testing. The experiment was carried out to study the characteristics, purposes, effectiveness and operational procedures of classroom formative assessment of oral English teaching.This research was based on the previous related researches, formative assessment theories and Oral English testing theories in combination with the present situation of college oral English teaching. The research continued the past researches and filled the gap of formative assessment in college oral English teaching in China.The research consisted of an experiment and a survey after the experiment. Questionnaires were first designed and surveyed among 200 freshmen to analyze their needs and problems in oral English learning. Then two classes of students were selected as subjects, one experimental class and one control class, with 101 students in total. The research compared the teaching effect between oral English teaching with formative assessment and traditional oral English teaching to examine the effect of oral English teaching with formative assessment. After the experiment, a survey was conducted with the students in both classes and the teacher to investigate their subjective feedback on the formative assessment.The results of the research show the positive effect of oral English teaching with formative assessment. Students in the experimental class achieve greater progress in oral English ability in general and in every sub-skill in oral English than students in the control class. Students in the experimental class make significant progress in language flexibility, sentence length and coherence. Some subjective factors in students of the experimental class (e.g. students'interests and enthusiasm in oral English learning) have improved through teaching with formative assessment. The introduction of formative assessment into oral English teaching enriches and amends...