Application Of Formative Assessment To College English Writing Teaching

The new curriculum standard of English requires that in language learning students should have comprehensive language abilities that include language skills,language knowledge,emotional attitudes,learning strategies and cultural awareness.The language skills include listening,speaking,reading and writing.English writing is usually a difficult part in teaching and learning,which has been paid more and more attention in research fields.With the continuous development of teaching evaluation,many scholars have shifted the research object from the writing results to writing processes.As an evaluation method of language teaching,formative assessment has attracted more and more researchers' attention.The author introduced the formative assessment into each step of English writing teaching in College,in order to explore students' attitudes towards English writing and the feasibility and effectiveness of formative assessment in college English writing teaching after applying the formative assessment.Based on the theories of constructivism and multiple intelligence,this thesis aims to answer the following questions: Whether the application of formative assessment can improve college students' English writing score effectively? Does formative assessment have positive effects on student' attitudes towards English writing? The research carried out a sixteen-week experiment on two non-English-major classes in Northwest Normal University.Results of pretest show that writing performance of the two classes are identical at first.Then the topic writing,self assessment,and peer assessment and teacher assessment were conducted in the experimental class while the original writing teaching method was carried out in the control class.Meanwhile,questionnaire and interviews were carried out in the experimental class after the experiment.The test results were analyzed by SPSS 17.0 software.This study shows that:(1)the application of formative assessment in college English writing teaching can generally improve students' writing score;(2)using of formative assessment has positive effect on college students' attitudes toward English writing.The process of applying formative assessment to college English writing teaching is the process of the common growth of teachers and students.On the one hand,the integration of formative assessment and English writing stimulates the students' subjectivity,makes students get the opportunities to be evaluated by many people,strengthens students' consciousness of independent learning and cooperative learning.On the other hand,in the teaching process of formative assessment,teachers can change the traditional teaching concept,strengthen the communication with the students,adjust the teaching plan according to the students' problems timely,which can improve the quality of teaching.