Effect Of Formative Assessment On English Learners’ Affection And Oral Ability

It is widely recognized that formative assessment is a key component and driving force of English teaching(MOE, 2011). Based on multiple value and process, formative assessment emphasizes democratic participation, consultation and communication, which helps students to promote positive affective factors in English learning, adjust their learning process and motivate students to learn actively.This study uses empirical research methods to explore the impact on rural middle school students’ positive affective factors and oral ability with the application of formative assessment in English learning, attempting to answer the following questions:1. What effect does formative assessment have on students’ affection, including motivation, attitude and self-esteem?2. What effect does formative assessment have on students’ oral ability, regarding language accuracy, language flexibility, sentence complexity and content?Quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this study. The research subjects of this experiment is middle school students of Funing county. The empirical study was carried out in the oral English class. Before the experiment, two classes of 60 students filled in the questionnaire on affective factors and received oral ability test. Testing results show that there is no significant difference between the two groups. In the experiment, two classes were set up as control group(30) and experiment group(30) respectively. The former followed the traditional oral teaching and evaluation methods, while the latter adopted oral language teaching method under the guidance of formative evaluation. After the experiment, the two classes were required to fill in questionnaire on affective factors again and receive oral ability test. In addition, 30 students in the experiment group received an interview on the formative assessment of their affective factors and learning styles as well as oral skills training. Questionnaire is designed on the basis of the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale and the scale of the questionnaire compiled by Dr. Li Fang. The Senior High School Entrance Examination Oral Test is adopted as pre and post oral test.The results are indicated as follows:1. There is a significant positive effect of the formative assessment on the affection of the rural middle school English learners. 1) The biggest development is in the motivation of learning English. The use of formative assessment greatly stimulated the learning desire and motivation of the students. Learners’ interest and enthusiasm in learning English have been greatly improved. 2) As for the attitude of learning English, learners show a positive tendency in learning mood and behavior, and their classroom participating has been greatly improved. 3) In terms of self-esteem, compared with the motivation and attitude, the change is not significant. Although students in the experiment group are more willing to practice their oral ability than the control group in the process of oral ability cultivation, as similar to the control group, the progress is not so obvious.2. There is a significant effective effect of the formative assessment on the rural junior middle school English learners’ oral ability. 1) In terms of fluency, it was enhanced to the largest degree. The multiple evaluation subjects of the formative assessment create more equal opportunities for students’ consultation and exchange, so as to enhance the students’ oral fluency. 2) In terms of accuracy, the evaluation method which focus on the process and the part of the learner’s responsibility contributed to promoting the effectiveness of learners’ oral ability training. 3) In terms of complexity, the competence at sentence and vocabulary level could not been enhanced in a short time, so the improvement is not so obvious. 4) In terms of content, the change is not evident. The topics for the students to talk about are chosen from textbooks, students centered around the same communication topic, contents contain less diversity.In this study, the formative evaluation theory is introduced into rural middle school oral English teaching in order to explore the application of formative assessment in middle school teaching evaluation. It is no doubt that the study has instructive significance of both enriching and improving current evaluation system of English teaching and English teaching reform.