An Empirical Study On Improving Senior Middle School Students’ English Autonomous Learning Ability With Formative Assessment

In recent years, formative assessment and autonomous learning are of great concern to many linguists and educators. The National English Curriculum Standard (2001) advocates establishing reasonable assessment system and developing students’autonomous learning ability as well. With the deepening reform of English teaching in senior middle school, improving student’s autonomous learning ability has become the focus of educators. Based on the previous theoretical and empirical studies, the researcher believes the employment of formative assessment is a feasible way to improve students’ English autonomous learning ability.In order to testify the hypothesis that the employment of formative assessment can improve senior middle school students’ English autonomous learning ability, and probe into the effects of formative assessment on English autonomous learning, the researcher conducted a one term empirical study. The research questions are as follows:1) What is the level of the participants’ English autonomous learning ability before the teaching experiment?2) What is the level of the participants’ English autonomous learning ability after the teaching experiment and is it improved?3) If the answer is yes, what effects does formative assessment have on English learning in improving the participants’ English autonomous learning ability?The research mainly uses three instruments:questionnaire, experiment and interview. The research subjects are67students from class5, grade1of XX No.5Senior Middle School. During the experiment, the researcher uses formative assessment methods to collect information about the students’learning process. Questionnaire investigation consists of pre-questionnaire and post questionnaire. Quantitative data were collected in September,2011and January,2012. Data analysis mainly uses descriptive order and paired-samples t test order of SPSS17.0statistics software to analyze the real level of the participants’English autonomous learning ability before and after the experiment and whether it is improved. Interviews are held before the experiment and in the middle of it to learn the student’s attitudes toward formative assessment, autonomous learning and their real situations of English learning after the implementation of the experiment. The result indicates that the use of formative assessment can improve senior middle school students’ English autonomous learning ability.1) Before the experiment, the participants’ overall English autonomous learning ability is not satisfactory and relatively low (Mean=2.79).2) After the experiment, the participants’English autonomous learning ability in senior middle school is improved (Mean=3.04). The result of the paired-samples t test indicates that there is an obvious contrast between the statistical results of participants’ English autonomous learning ability before and after the experiment (t=7.28. p=.000<.05).3) The employment of formative assessment can:promote students’English learning interests and confidence; encourage students to make proper study plans; help learners form good learning habits and adopt effective English learning strategies; and enable students to monitor and adjust their English learning process and learn to make regular proper self-evaluations.Using formative assessment to improve the senior middle school students’ English autonomous learning ability is feasible. Therefore, English teachers need to learn to use proper formative assessment methods to foster students’ autonomous learning ability and to combine formative assessment and summative assessment together to make assessing more comprehensive and scientific; while students need to realize the positive functions of teacher’s assessment, students’ self-assessment, peer assessment and portfolio assessment and their importance to promote autonomous learning ability, and try to develop their own autonomous learning ability to set a solid foundation for life-long learning.Of course, due to the limitation and insufficiency of the researcher’s practical and theoretical level, this study definitely has some shortcomings and remains to be further improved. For instance, the sample of participants is too small, the study process is time and energy consuming, and the results of questionnaire investigations are restrained by students’ subjective factors inevitably, all these may affect the conclusions of the study to some extent.