The Research Of Formative Assessment Applied To College EFL Writing Teaching

Formative assessment is an important component of language teaching, aiming at improving language teaching and learning through providing teachers and students with immediate and effective feedback. The studies on formative assessment dated from the 1980's in western countries. Studies of the theory and practice of formative assessment also have been carried out at home, but compared with a large number of empirical studies conducted abroad; the empirical study of formative assessment is rarely reported in China. In particular, the applications of formative assessment in EFL classroom teaching need further investigation. Combining with the present situation of the college English teaching, this thesis tried to explore the implementation of formative assessment in college English writing teaching to reveal its impact on students'writing proficiency.This research consisted of a teaching experiment and a questionnaire. 48 non-English majors were the subjects, who entered Chongqing University in 2007. They were classified into two classes randomly. One of the classes was taken as the experimental class and the other was the control class. Before the teaching experiment, the two classes were given a pretest, the results of which were processed and analyzed by the statistic software SPSS and showed no statistically significant difference between the two classes in English writing proficiency. Then formative assessment was implemented in the experimental class to assess students'compositions, while in the control class the traditional summative assessment was used. After 10 weeks of teaching experiment, the two classes were given a posttest. A questionnaire was employed in the experimental class to survey the influence of formative assessment on students'attitude toward writing and their writing strategies. The test data and questionnaire data have been subjected to statistical analysis, including independent sample T-test and paired samples T-test. The results showed statistic significant difference, that is, the students in the experimental class achieved better improvement in writing proficiency than those in the control class. And formative assessment had a positive effect on students'attitude, confidence and writing strategies.In addition, portfolio was a necessary instrument to combine the writing teaching and assessment together. And through portfolios, students could objectively assess themselves, witness their own progress. In the process of formative assessment, an assessment"trinity"was formed including self-assessment, peer-assessment and teacher-assessment, which provided immediate feedback to the teacher and students and improved students'cooperation consciousness.The most important contribution of the present research was that formative assessment was successfully introduced and applied in college English writing teaching to improve students'writing proficiency. Hence, the research was of practical value to the implementation of formative assessment in college English teaching in China.