A Study Of Formative Assessment On The Cultivation Of Autonomous Learning Ability In Non-English Majors Of Vocational Colleges

Basic Requirements of Vocational College English Teaching formulated thatlanguage testing should not only assess students’English knowledge but also their abilityof using the language. However, different from undergraduates, most vocational collegestudents’English level is poor to some extent. What’s worse, most of them do not haveautonomous learning ability, which also impedes their promotion of integrated skills. Aswe all know, in English teaching, scientific and rational assessment can not only boostteaching itself but also stimulate students’learning motivation. In addition, formativeassessment mainly emphasizes on assessing students’English knowledge, the use oflanguage knowledge, learning process of language skills and learning strategies, which isin line with the teaching goals and assessment principles in Basic Requirements.So this thesis applies formative assessment to the cultivation of autonomouslearning ability in non-English majors of vocational colleges. And classroom observation,interview, questionnaire and portfolios are used to record students’performance,improvement and development. According to the feedback information provided by thoseinstruments, learners can take down their learning process. In addition, teachers canadjust their teaching plan in time and keep a watchful eye on the dynamic developmentof learners’English level. Finally with the teachers’help, learners can achieve the goal ofsetting up confidence in learning and cultivating autonomous learning ability. Theresearch was carried out in two classes of Shandong Vocational College of Technologywith one as the experimental class and the other as the control class. Students in the twoclasses are non-English majors of 2010 and use Integrated Skills Course as the textbook.Both formative assessment and summative assessment were applied in experimentalclass while only summative assessment was adopted in control class in the teaching ofthe whole semester. Then SPSS16.0 was used to make vertical comparison and horizontalcomparison of the collected data. The research results are as follows: 1) formativeassessment can help to cultivate learners’autonomous learning ability 2) formative assessment can enhance learners’motivation in English learning 3) formative assessmentcan promote learners integrated skills.Several implications and suggestions can also get from this research. First of all,teachers should convert their roles to be the director and favorer of learning. Secondly,students are suggested to cultivate and improve their autonomous learning ability byusing different kinds of formative assessment methods. When it comes to curriculum, itis suggested that the setting of curriculum should be based on the interest and practicaluse of students.However, there are some limitations in this research such as time consuming, energyconsuming and high request of formative assessment. Besides, during the process ofresearch, several disturbance variables, for example learners’feeling and attitude and soon, may affect the reliability of the research. But all in all the advantages are more thandisadvantages.