The Impact Of Formative Assessment On College English Listening

Recently, with the advent of formative assessment, extensive studies show that formative assessment can promote learning, which makes the investigation on how to improve the quality of teaching through assessment become prevalent and attractive.This thesis is an empirical study based on the theory of formative assessment and self-efficacy. The research is conducted in the context of College English listening instructions for non-English majors. The purpose is to explore how to effectively undertake formative assessment in College English listening. It aims to explore the impact of the implementation of formative assessment on students’listening proficiency and listening self-efficacy. It also attempts to investigate the correlations between students’listening proficiency and listening self-efficacy from the perspective of formative assessment.The experiment was conducted in East China University of Science and Technology. There were136sophomores of non-English majors participating in this study. One class was the experimental class (EC), who received training program of formative assessment from the first semester of September,2011to the second semester of June,2012. The other class was served as the controlled class (CC) receiving regular listening instructions. At the end of the experiment, the students from both the EC and CC completed a listening self-efficacy questionnaire. The students in the EC received interviews whose topic was related to this study. Listening tasks were designed similar to forms of listening comprehension section in CET Band4and their performance was assessed based on scoring criteria of it as well.The findings are that subjects from the EC perform better than those from the CC in listening proficiency, which confirms the impact of the implementation of formative assessment is more effective. For high-achievers, formative assessment could not contribute to impressive improvements on listening proficiency; while formative assessment has greater impact on low-achievers’listening proficiency. Students’listening self-efficacy is proved to enhance more in the EC. There is significantly positive correlation between listening proficiency and listening self-efficacy as well. High listening proficient students have high listening self-efficacy. Meanwhile, high listening self-efficacious students have better listening proficiency.On the basis of these findings, this study proves the necessity of practicing formative assessment in College English classroom and the importance of nurturing students’ self-efficacy beliefs in the process of English acquisition. Some theoretical and pedagogical implications are put forward about the theory concerning how to implement formative assessment effectively and about how to improve the effectiveness of teaching, learning and assessment in practice.