Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four abilities of the CollegeEnglish Curriculum Requirements. Among them, speaking and writing are productiveskills, which can most directly reflect the English learners’ mastery of language usingability. Compared with the stage of junior high school and senior high school, thelevel of college students’ English writing has been greatly improved. Most studentscan write the actual content of the articles, however, one problem that can not beignored is that English writing is seriously out of touch with English teaching. Fromthe form of writing expression, most students’ articles are mainly in short sentences,complex and compound sentences are hardly appeared. Meanwhile, the collegestudents feel fearful on English writing, they don’t have interests or even confidenceon that. The reason for the problem is that the traditional evaluation of English writinginhibits the development of students’ English writing abilities. It is mainly reflected inthree aspects: evaluation subject and evaluation content are single. Under the currentassessment of college English writing, teachers are still the only subjects of evaluation.Students write and then the teachers evaluate the compositions, the purpose of writingis only to finish the teachers’ assigned tasks, the teachers are the only readers ofstudents’ writing. And when the teachers evaluate compositions, they focus on theform rather than the content, and focus on the product rather than the process.Therefore, when they evaluate, they pay more attention to the errors of grammar,vocabulary, sentence structure and so on. So students often face full of red lines, redletters, criticisms and correction comments, which deeply affect students’ writingenthusiasm. If this trend continues, students will gradually loose their interests andconfidence in writing, even fear and disgust writing. In addition, the method ofassessment is single.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
Educational evaluation reform is an important part in the new round ofcurriculum reform, so find a suitable evaluation method for college English teachingand improve the educational evaluation system can better promote the process ofeducational evaluation reform. According to the College English Curriculum TeachingRequirement, the college English curriculum should establish a multiple evaluation system which can promote students’ integrated development. It emphasizes that thefunction of evaluation is not only an important basis for teachers to get teachingfeedbacks, to improve teaching management, and to ensure teaching quality but it alsoenable students to adjust learning strategies, to make better learning methods, and toimprove learning efficiency. In other words, the evaluation focus of curriculumstandard has gradually paid more attention to the process of students’ gettingknowledge, the process of students’ exploring and the process of students’ hardworking. This reflects that current English writing teaching should pay more attentionto the use of formative assessment. The writer applies the formative assessment whichthe College English Curriculum Teaching Requirements advocated to the teaching ofFreshmen English writing so as to test the effectiveness. To be exact, formativeassessment can increase students’ English writing interests and confidence,and furtherimprove their writing abilities.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 The Main Theories of Formative Assessment
Formative assessment is also called classroom assessment, it was first appearedin Scriven’s article, The Methodology of Evaluation.. It is a range of formal andinformal assessment procedures undertaken by teachers in the classroom, and it is alsoregarded as an integral part of the normal teaching and learning process so as tomodify, guide and enhance learning and understanding, further to improve bothteaching and learning (M.Scriven, 1967:39).The definitions of the formative assessment were given by diffierent scholars.Allan C. considered the formative assessment was a guide activity, teachers couldadjust their teaching plans according to the achievements which had been mastered(Allan C.,1990:169).Black P. and William D., who are the international famous experts in formativeassessment, reckoned that the formative assessment included all the informationactivities which the teachers and the students collected, and these information couldeffectively adjust teaching and learning ( Black P. And William D.,1998:70).Cowie and Bell considered the formative assessment was an evaluation whichwas participated by both teachers and students, and provided feedbacks for theteachers and the students so as to promote students’ learning (Cowie andBell,2001:117).According to “the National Senior High School English Currriculum” which waspublished by the Ministry of Education, the formative assessment was an importantpart of teaching process.
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2.2 Related Researches on Formative Assessment Using in English Writing Teaching
In 1967, American evaluation expert M. Scriven putted forward the formativeassessment in Methodology of Evaluation. This concept firstly be applied to evaluatecurriculum development, It meant in the process of compiling and testing of a neweducation programs, plans, curricula, etc. evaluation could provide effective feedbackwith revise and improve education programs, plans and curricula. Then, B.S.Bloomconsidered that the formative assessment also can be used in teaching and students’learning, “ in the process of teaching, evaluation can provide teachers with relativeteaching feedback and further improve their teaching effectiveness, at the same time,evaluation make students get know well with the degree of knowledge which they mastered.In the 1980s , more and more scholars began to focus on the concept of theformative assessment. Meanwhile, researchers distinguished the formative assessmentwith the summative assessment, for example: Bachman (1989) considered that theywere different in implementable purposes and times. The formative assessmentfocused on curriculum development, while the summative assessment focused oncurriculum effectiveness; the formative assessment happened in the process ofteaching while the summative assessment happened after teaching. People of thisperiod were overemphasised the role of distinguishing evaluation, and did not noticeits function of helping students learn.
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Chapter 3 Research Design .... 19
3.1 Research Questions ......... 19
3.2 Subjects ...... 19
3.3 Instruments........ 19
3.4 Procedures......... 21
3.5 Data Collections and Analysis ...... 24
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion ........ 26
4.1 Writing Affect.... 26
4.2 Writing Consciousness.... 36
4.3 Language Ability...... 38
Chapter 5 Conclusion...... 41
5.1 Major Findings......... 41
5.2 Suggestions on English Writing Teaching.......... 43
5.3 Limitations and Recommendation for Future Research.......... 46
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Writing Affect
The results of both questionnaires and interviews proved that the formativeassessment was more effective in improving students’ English writing affects than thesummative assessment. From the above table, we could see that there were totally 13 questions inQuestionnaire I, and in the controlled class, the mean score was about 2.264, whichwas a little lower than the mean in the experimental class (2.400). From the above table, we could see the sig. value (2-tailed) was 0.122, whichwas higher than 0.05. That means there were no statistic significances in the results ofthe two questionnaires. That was to say, students in the controlled class and studentsin the experimental class were similar in their writing attitudes, reflections on theformative assessment and writing abilities.
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Conclusion
After 10 weeks’ experiment in college English writing teaching, we can find thatthe application of the formative assessment to English writing teaching plays a ratherpositive role in the followed areas:Formative assessment is more effective in improving freshmen Englishwriting affect than summative assessment.The application of the formative assessment to the writing course providesstudents’ more opportunities for writing and revising than before, such asself-involved assessment, peer-assessment and teacher assessment which have greatlyimproved the students’ writing enthusiasm. Moreover, the “deferred assessment”grants the teacher more time to evaluate students’ performance than before, andreduces the teacher’s pressure of checking students’composition to a certain extent.Without the pressure of marking the students’ composition during the time of givingclasses, the teacher may have more time to improve the quality of teaching thanbefore. In fact, one of the reasons that make writing course difficult to open is that itis hard to correct composition in time under the traditional product-oriented teachingapproach.
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Reference (omitted)
