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

Writing is an important language skill. English writing teaching plays a significant role in the senior high school English teaching. However, the present status of writing is far from satisfaction. Quite a few students are not interested in writing and their writing ability is relatively low. One of the reasons is that the majority of teachers use the traditional summative assessment in the daily writing teaching. This kind of assessment places emphasis on learning results, book knowledge and the selection of excellent students, undervaluing learning process, the development of students’ quality and the encouragement towards students, which can’t arouse students’ learning enthusiasm and the inner motivation, preventing students from developing their initiative and creativity in learning. Formative assessment is put forward to make up for the disadvantages of summative assessment. It is one of the growing trends of educational evaluation, which gains more and more attention in our country. The new English Curriculum Standard advocates that the assessment system which can stimulate students’learning interest and develop their autonomous learning ability be established; Formative assessment should be predominantly used in the English teaching process, and we teachers should pay more attention to cultivate and arouse students’ learning enthusiasm and confidence.In this research, the author consciously applies formative assessment in senior high school English writing teaching to explore the effects of formative assessment on the students’writing interest and ability. In order to fulfill this goal, the author selects two classes of Grade One from Xixian No.3 Senior High School as the research objects. One is experimental class and the other is control class. The results of questionnaire and test before the experiment show that there is no evident difference between the two classes’ writing attitude and ability. The only difference lies in that formative assessment, which includes self-assessment, peer-assessment, teacher assessment as well as portfolio, is used in the writing teaching of experimental class; while summative assessment is still used in the control class during the experiment. Then the author conducts another questionnaire and test in the two classes when the experiment is over. What’s more, the author also interviews six students of different English levels from the experimental class twice.Through the analysis of data from these two questionnaires, tests, and interviews, the author finds that the students in the experimental class are becoming more interested in writing and they have made greater progress in it compared with students in the control class. Based on the above experimental results, the author concludes that the application of formative assessment in the senior high school English writing teaching can arouse students’ learning interest and improve their writing ability.