A Study Of Formative Assessment In The Process Approach Of Teaching English Writing In Senior High Schools

As an important part of the English learning, writing can largely entail students’comprehensive abilities to use English. However, the author finds that students insenior high schools have great difficulty in English writing concerning poor grasp ofbasic language knowledge, structural disorder, the lack of genre knowledge andadequate writing strategies etc. In fact, the teaching of writing has become a majorproblem in the current English teaching. Currently, most instruction for Englishwriting in senior high schools still take the traditional Product Approach thatemphasizes writing as a final product instead of a process which consists of differentstages. In this approach, students’ writing competence is evaluated according to theirone-time scores, which is called the summative assessment. Chinese Ministry ofEducation promulgated the English Curriculum for Senior High School in2003,which advises a teaching emphasis on the process of learning and advocates formativeway to assess the performance of the students in the writing process.So the author proposes the formative assessment which is applied to each stepsof the process approach, including planning, drafting, revising, feedback, rewriting,etc. This combination precisely mirrors basic requirements which are mentioned inthe new National English Curriculum. The portfolio-assisted process approachintegrates the formative assessment and the process approach.Literature research method, questionnaire survey and contrast experimentalmethod are adopted in the research. First, the author can understand the status ofimplementation of the formative evaluation in the process writing approach at homeand abroad through documentary research. And the questionnaires help a betterunderstanding of the current situation of teaching English writing in senior highschools. Then, the author carries out an experiment in the High School Affiliated toShandong Normal University. Two classes of senior one students of the sameproficiency in English are randomly chosen as a control class and an experimentalclass. The study lasts approximately three months with the experimental class taughtthrough the Formative assessment accompanied by process approach while the control class the summative assessment along with product approach. The study is carried outby several instruments, including pretest and posttest, questionnaires. The authorcollects some relevant data and analyzes them, using SPSS.At last, the results of the experiment show that:1) the application of formativeassessment into the process approach of teaching English writing can be widelyaccepted by students of senior high schools.2) After training, the questionnairesshows that the experimental class students have a more positive attitude towards thewriting process by using the formative assessment strategy. The students’ confidenceand interests in writing has risen significantly. There is also a great improvement intheir writing habits, methods and strategies.3）There appears no significant differencebetween the two classes in terms of scores of writing tests after training, though theexperimental class’s writing marks is better than that of the control one.In conclusion, it can be seen that the application of formative assessment into theprocess approach of teaching English writing can not only arouse students’ interests inlearning but also be regarded as an effective mechanism to motivate students toinvolve in writing practice. However, the study is only a tentative one and it has somelimitations and problems.