A Study On The Implementation Of Formative Assessment In English Teaching In Senior Middle School

At present, English teaching evaluation methods depend too much on summative assessment in our country. As is known to all, a student's testing scores are treated as final evaluation criteria in summative evaluation methods, so summative assessment strengthens the function of testing scores. This has resulted in many students learning English only to pass examinations or to go to school. Apparently, this kind of instrumental learning motivation is hard to enhance students'learning enthusiasm or for them to keep their interest in learning. What often happens is that once students fail to get the scores they desire, they become anxious and think that they are incompetent or worse than other students. Furthermore, their self-confidence may be greatly shaken. In addition, the present English testing papers in middle school still focus on grammar or language knowledge. As a consequence of this, students pay excessive attention to memorizing language points, but neglect the importance of improving their integrate ability to use the language. In short, to a certain extent, summative assessment ignores the evaluation on students'creativity and subjectivity.It is in this context that formative assessment is proposed, which focuses on all kinds of students'authentic learning activities and tasks. Its purpose is to find out language aptitude of each student, improve and strengthen students'learning methods and provide feedback for teachers. It is an important part of curriculum evaluation, and also a key assurance of carrying out the educational activity and objective successfully. According to the General Senior Middle School English Course Criteria,"Teachers should promote the combination of summative assessment and formative assessment and attach importance to the learning process as well as the final result. And evaluation should be primarily formative."This thesis has made some analysis of the existing problems in the practical curriculum evaluation in English teaching in senior high school,introduces methods and means of formative assessment in classroom teaching and attempts to bring English teaching theories and students'effective learning into a perfect harmony from the angle of classroom teaching practices in middle school.Based on the author's own teaching practice, the thesis explores how to carry out formative assessment in English teaching in middle school and includes some experimental research. The analysis of the statistical results proved the effectiveness of the experimental research. According to the Evaluation Reform on Curriculum,"Summative assessment and formative assessment are not contradictory. The difference is the focal point. It proves that the result of summative assessment will be better, if enough attention has been paid to formative assessment."( Xu Yong, Gong Shaohua, 2001)...