The Construction Of Foreign Language Assessment Strategies Under The View Of Constructivism

Research on educational assessment has been a major field of the western education since R. W. Tyler, the famous American educator, first put forward the concept of "educational assessment" in 1930s. Great achievement in this field has been accomplished both home and abroad.Assessment is an indispensable component of instruction. It includes myriads of methods and activities that are used to obtain information about behaviors. The role of assessment has been crucial with its influences on the lives of learners, teachers, and administrators. Unfortunately, the traditional assessment, a kind of summative, characterized by paper-and-pencil tests, has exposed more and more weaknesses and problems, failing to assess learners in an all-round way. Many side effects on foreign language teaching and learning have been caused by such a traditional assessment system. For example, the traditional assessment system overvalues the cultivation of techniques in taking exams, but fails to bring the activity, initiative, and autonomy of learners into full play. As Puhl (1997) claimed, we cannot change the teaching methods and processes unless we change the ways of assessment (Luo, 2001: i). Therefore, an alternative assessment system is called for to assess learners properly and promote the constant development of learners, the unceasing progress of teaching and learning, and the steady improvement of curriculum. Meanwhile, with the publication of National Curriculum Standard of English in 2001 and College English Curriculum Requirements in 2004, the Ministry of Education has carried out a new round of assessment-focused reform at the middle school level and college level respectively.Therefore, the present study intends to propose a framework of foreign language assessment strategies under the view of constructivism. Constructivism, being a psychological theory of knowledge and learning, emphasizes the learner's contribution to meaning and learning, and holds the view that knowledge must be constructed within the cognitive structure of every individual. Therefore, a constructivist theory of learning focuses on the process of learners' active construction of knowledge, focuses on learners' authentic understanding of knowledge, focuses on the multi-dimensional and multi-faceted nature of teaching objectives, and focuses on learners' affective experience. Bearing these in mind, a constructivist perspective of foreign language assessment should assess learners in an all-round way, making the assessment itself facilitate rather than debilitate their learning process. A framework of foreign language assessment strategies is thus proposed, which highlights the integration of formative and summative assessment, implementation of performance assessment, and diversification in the contents, methods, and criteria of assessment. Along with it are some ways and tools for conducting constructivist foreign language assessment.This thesis consists of 6 chapters. It begins, in Chapter 1, with an introduction of the research background of the present study and the theoretical and practical significance of the present study. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the historical and contemporary issues related to educational assessment at home and abroad, and defines some terms and concepts relevant to the present study, which of course includes concepts related with constructivism. After the presentation of some concepts related with constructivism, Chapter 3 expounds a constructivist perspective on foreign language teaching, followed by Chapter 4, a constructivist paradigm of foreign language assessment. This chapter first discusses the weaknesses and problems of traditional assessment system, and then moves to what a constructivist view of foreign language assessment system should emphasize. After the explanation of the rationales in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, Chapter 5 goes to the practical level, presenting a framework of foreign language assessment strategies under the view of constructivism. Chapter 6 draws the whole thesis into a natural conclusion. Several points are discussed in Chapter 6 for special attention.