The Application Of Formative Assessment In Teaching English Writing In Senior High School

Educational assessment is thought to be a significant factor in English teaching. And whether we can use educational assessment appropriately has a great influence on the teaching quality. With the development of education and the implementation of New Curriculum Reform, the unitary assessment system cannot satisfy the demand of present teaching and learning. Therefore, the methods of the assessment must be diversified. Formative assessment is student-centered, and it focuses on the students’learning process rather than the outcomes. Formative assessment develops students from passive objects to active participants in the assessment activities. During the learning process, students’knowledge, learning ability, attitudes, emotion, etc are assessed. Formative assessment can help students know their strengths and weaknesses clearly. It encourages students, strengthens their self-confidence and stimulates their enthusiasm for learning. With formative assessment applied, students’ comprehensive competence is developed.Writing is an important skill for students to achieve. While the importance of writing has been stressed, the teaching of writing is still not effective. Many students are not interested in writing and even have problems with it. One of the reasons is that teachers and students focus on the writing products instead of the writing process. Students often feel frustrated by the results, but they don’t know how to improve their writing ability. In addition, teachers play the leading role in the assessment of writing. Students don’t participate in it, so they don’t know their strengths and weaknesses in writing, let alone improving it.Under such circumstances, this research which begins at the beginning of the second term of the second year aims to explore whether formative assessment is helpful in motivating senior students’ positive attitude toward English writing and it is effective in improving senior students’writing ability. The Senior Two students of Shuangliu Middle School enrolled in2010are chosen as the subjects. The two classes are divided into Experimental Class (EC) and Control Class (CC) respectively. The results of the pre-test (see Appendix I) and Questionnaire I (see Appendix III) show that there is no significant differences between the two classes. During the process of the experiment, the students of the two classes are taught by the same teacher, and the textbook used by them are the same. In teaching English writing, traditional summative assessment is used in the Control Class, while formative assessment is used in the Experimental Class. The methods of formative assessment used in Experimental class include self-assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment and student portfolio. At the end of the term, the post-test (see Appendix II) and Questionnaire II (see Appendix IV) are conducted.After analyzing the data, the author has found that compared with the students in Control Class, the students in Experimental Class have made great progress in English writing and their enthusiasm for English writing has been stimulated. Based on the data, conclusions are drawn:formative assessment is helpful in promoting students’ positive attitudes in learning and it is effective in improving students’ writing ability. In addition, the author also comes up with some suggestions about the application of assessment. Although formative assessment benefits English teaching a lot, it does not mean that we should deny the advantages of summative assessment. Only if scientific and objective assessment system is established can students’ comprehensive competence be improved.