An Experimental Study On The Application Of Formative Assessment To English Reading Instruction In Rural Junior Middle Schools

The New English Curriculum in 2011 stated that formative assessment should be adopted as the main assessment in English teaching process.And assessment,which is a tool of English teaching,has a great effect on English teaching.For a long time,summative assessment has become the main assessment way in English teaching under the traditional and examination-oriented education.This assessment attaches importance to teaching result and does not care about the teaching and learning process.However,currently,quality-oriented education has been gradually popularized and as a result,summative assessment cannot meet the needs of education any longer.Formative assessment attaches importance to teaching and learning process.Meanwhile,it not only manifests students' learning process,but also emphasizes on students' emotion,learning interests and learning strategies and so on.In recent years,scholars have made more and more researches on its concepts and basic theory,but there are a few researches on the application of formative assessment to English reading instruction in rural junior middle schools.The main aim of the study is to test whether formative assessment has more advantages than the traditional assessment to promote students' reading comprehension ability;whether formative assessment can cultivate students English reading confidence and motivation;and whether the application of the formative assessment in rural junior middle schools English reading instructions can be possible.The writer made this research basing on a sample of one hundred and two students in Grade Eight in Tancheng Middle School,located in Mengcheng County,Bozhou City.The questionnaires,interviews,the classroom observation and the test-papers have been adopted to serve the research.The experiment lasts about one term,which includes five steps: pre-questionnaire,pre-test,adopting formative assessment in English reading teaching,post-test and post-questionnaire.In practical classroom,the writer conducted the formative assessment.During teaching the interviews and classroom observations were used to assist the experiment.Combining the data collection and analysis with the Multiple Intelligence Theory and Cooperative Learning Theory,it can be concluded that formative assessment has a great effect on rural junior middle school English reading teaching though there are some limitations.In long run,it can improve students' English reading ability,learning interests and learning strategies and promotes students English learning.