Implementing Formative Assessment For Oral English Teaching In High School: An Empirical Study

Education assessment is an important part of English teaching. Assessment isclassified as formative assessment and summative assessment according to theirfunctions in the process of instruction. The traditional assessment–summativeassessment-has been dominant in China, but the traditional assessment mode cannotmeet students’ internal need for development. For the purpose of promoting theoverall development of students, a diversified evaluation system should be establishedso that the evaluation will help students achieve academic success and improveEnglish classroom teaching and the professional quality of English teachers. Based onthe above consideration, this study, taking the theory of formative assessment as abasis, is combined with oral English teaching in senior high school, thus an empiricalstudy has been conducted, designed to arouse students’ interest in oral practice,promote their speaking ability, improve their learning attitude and behavior, andenhance their learning confidence. Meanwhile, in practice, we aim to exploreeffective ways in oral English teaching in senior high school.This thesis combines related theories with empirical study. The participants of theexperiment are Senior One students of two classes from Shanghai Foreign LanguageSchool Affiliated to Shanghai International Studies University (SFLS for short).Before the experiment, sixty students took part in a questionnaire about their presentsituation in Oral English learning. During the experiment, one class is regarded as thecontrol group (CG) and the other as the experimental group (EG). Traditionalassessment of oral English teaching is adopted in the CG while formative assessmentis adopted in the EG. This research compares the formative assessment of oral Englishteaching with traditional oral English teaching to explore the effect of oral Englishteaching with formative assessment.Through the teaching practice and empirical study in the entire semester, theresults indicate that students in the experimental class have made greater progress intheir overall oral ability and in every sub-skill of oral abilities than those in the control class. Some subjective factors, such as interest, learning attitude and strategy, haveimproved considerably because of the implementation of oral English teaching withformative assessment.This thesis introduces the formative assessment theory into oral English teachingof high school, applies formative assessment in oral English teaching assessment,presents the implementation principles, methods and tools of formative assessment,which is meaningful in enriching and improving the present teaching assessmentsystem and in guiding the ongoing English teaching reform.