The Development Of Oral Communicative Language Ability In College EFL Classroom Through Formative Assessment

This thesis explores the implementation of formative assessment in EFL classroom. Educational assessment is currently a key debating area and has exerted broad interests among linguists and scholars in English education in China. In recent years formative assessment has been publicly introduced by our National Education Department in the documentation of College English Curriculum Standards (Trail Version, 2004). This documentation stresses that language assessment should be a combination of formative assessment with summative assessment and an integration of qualitative assessment and quantitative assessment. However, long been dominated by test-based summative assessment, formative assessment has not been conceptually recognized and accepted by most English teachers and there are no effective and practical assessment model in EFL classroom setting. As a foreign language, English is not only a basic course but also a communicating tool, this distinguished feature determines that English will never be learned and taught as a scientific subject. Based on L. F. Bachman's theory of communicative language ability and testing, this thesis explores the development of college students'oral English communicative ability by applying formative assessment in the EFL classroom.This thesis begins with a general review of the theoretical foundations of formative assessment and points out that the significance and necessity of applying formative assessment to promote effective learning in English education. Grounded in the convictive theories, this thesis also contains a case study of a practical experiment with persuasive findings. This experiment lasted one semester and got many college students involved. Standing strictly to the theories and principles of formative assessment, many assessing methods and techniques including questionnaires, in-class observations, conferences, group discussions, role plays, oral English portfolios, dialogue journals and oral presentation checklists are illustrated respectively. The experiment data and results in promoting college students'oral English communicative ability are presented in this thesis. Despite some problems and limitations, formative assessment provides effective possibilities for language assessment with great advantages and it accommodates current main steam of higher educational evaluation. However, since formative assessment is relatively new to educational researchers and EFL teachers in China, it is hoped that this discussion will stimulate thoughtful considerations of implementing formative assessment as an integrated part with English teaching and learning.