A Study Of The Effects Of Formative Assessment On Students’ English Learning Strategies In Senior High School

The basic idea of new English curriculum reform requires that the teaching evaluation system should include formative assessment and summative assessment. Meanwhile, it also emphasizes that evaluation should help students adjust their learning goals and strategies. However, most of China’s English Teaching only use summative assessment at present stage, and it is in conflict with the general requirements of the New Curriculum and Quality-oriented Education.The paper,combining the Theory of Constructivism, Humanism and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences mainly focuses on the application of formative assessment which affects the learning strategies of senior high students. The author did a four-month experiment among 91 students in Grade Two of An Sai Senior High School. Both formative assessment and summative assessment were adopted in experimental class. Only summative assessment was adopted in comparative class. The implementation of formative assessment was achieved through self-assessment, peer assessment and teacher-student cooperative assessment. Questionaires, tests and various assessment forms are the chief experimental tools. After experiment, SPSS17.0 was used to analyze all the data collected from the experiment by comparing mean and using independent sample t test method.In the four dimensions of learning strategies of the New Curriculum, the results show that the formative assessment has influence on English learning strategies of senior high students, profoundly on control strategy, secondly on cognitive strategy, next on resource strategy, and nothing on communication strategy. In addition, the use of formative assessment can also enhance students’ strategy use frequency and English academic achievement. Therefore, teachers should integrate formative assessment into the teaching practice to promote senior high school students’ English learning.