Research On The Correlation Between Formative Assessment In College EFL Class And Students' Learning Attitude

Assessment is one of the important aspects in EFL learning. Yet, for many teachers,decisions related to the assessment of student learning is an equally important part of their work. However, in a long period time, many teachers and educational authorities considered the paper-and–pencil tests were the only way to evaluate students. This traditional assessment emphasized the product of instruction but neglected teaching process and students'performance in the classroom. So a large number of students who were concerned more about their scores of the tests, felt anxious and depressed. Such an attitude has perverted their development of learning ability. So it is necessary to reform this kind of assessment.In addition to providing standard approaches to test and formal assessment, the field of assessment has put forward an alternative approach, which stresses students'performance and authentic tasks, such as classroom observations, portfolios and student conferences. Students'involvement into the assessment process makes them more active, creative and confident in EFL learning.The paper tries to examine the possible factors influencing students'positive attitude towards EFL learning and to find out whether the necessary link of assessment methods exists. It also adopts data analysis to study the effects of formative assessment on students'attitudes. In order to carry out the study, 120 students majoring in Management Science were selected from Grade two of Harbin Normal University as subjects. The result has provided some evidence to support the assumption that formative assessment do influence to some degree students'attitudes towards EFL learning, that is, the assessment approaches make students feel relaxed in class and more confident in evaluation, so more and more students will show their active attitude towards EFL learning.Generally speaking, students should keep positive attitude to EFL learning, but some of them have shown their negative attitude to it. Therefore, it is significant to study the factors influencing their learning attitude, to reform the EFL curriculum, assessment methods and teaching methodologies in order to facilitate the students'initiative learning ability, strengthen their autonomy and creativity, to improve second language teaching and enhance the success of second language learning.