Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
The objective of College English Teaching and Learning Reform is to developstudents' comprehensive abilities in English usage, especially in listening andspeaking. With the deepening of the reform, the main emphasis of educational goalshas been transferred from pursuit of knowledge to development of students'comprehensive abilities. In order to achieve the goals，it is quite urgent foreducationists and researchers to formulate an appropriate educational assessment.Based on a certain value st油dard，educational assessment means valueassessment of the change and development of education activities and value judgmentof the induction factors that cause the change and development.As an indispensable part of university English teaching，the role of educationassessment has been crucial with its influences on learners, teachers, andadministrators. And an accurate assessment plays a quite important role in achievingits teaching goals. It not only helps teachers receive effective feedback，enhances theteaching efficiency and finally improves teaching quality, but also arouses students'learning interest by offering them more effective learning methods and strategies andthus gradually helps them accomplish their ideal learning effect. In other words, anappropriate assessment contributes a lot to effective teaching and successful learningwhile an inadequate assessment can influence learners negatively.
………
1.2 Needs of the Study
With the development of Educational Reform of College English in China，spokenEnglish teaching has caught much attention. Spoken English for non-English-majorstudents has been adopted as a compulsory curricular course by more and more colleges.And the CET Band 4 and GET Band 6 examination committee has conducted theCET-SET (Spoken English Test) since 1999，requiring that the candidates must havepassed CET Band 4 and CET Band 6 with marks no less than 550. It requires acombination of summative and formative assessment and emphasizes that the mostimportant purpose of assessing is to enhance students' comprehensive abilities ofEnglish usage, particularly their ability in English speaking.Many researches cm the necessity and effect of carrying out formative assessmentin class have been conducted by some experts at home and abroad. However, most ofthe researches were conducted in primary and middle school classes，hardly are theyseen on the level of higher education researches. As known to all，compared to thestudents in middle schools, university and college students are more maturepsychologically and socially. In addition，university and college students have formeda fixed pattern of learning strategy and been equipped with the ability of autonomiclearning. Therefore, a scientific and objective assessment is extremely urgent for theuniversity and college students to evaluate their study efficiencies, promote theirfurther study and finally enhance their abilities of oral English application.
……….
Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Educational Assessment
Educational assessment is a new branch of science. In the early 20th century, inorder to overcome the subjectiveness of oral tests，people tried to explore a new meansof paper test of oral English and created a ttend of educational assessmentIn 1904，the famous American educational psychologist Edward Lee Thomdikeclaimed that everything existing is countable and all the countable tilings aremeasurable in his An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements^which established an objective and standard tiieoretical basis for educationalassessment. In 1933，American Progressive Education Alliance set up an assessmentcommittee with the leader of Professor Taylor. The committee had conducted aresearch on curriculum and assessment for eight years (1933_1941) and finallypresented the Smith~Taylor Report, which was termed as "Epoch-makingEducational Assessment Manifesto" by the later researchers. With the core, and basisof developing well-rounded educational objectives, Taylor proposed the educationalassessment theory, which laid the foundation for the study of educational evaluation.In the late 1950s, people began to re-interpret the Taylor's assessment mode anddoubted his operational behaviorist assessment. And after that different kinds ofassessment modes arose like mushrooms. And after years of debate，scholars reachedan agreement on the educational assessment classification of summative assessmentand formative assessment according to its functions.
…………
2.2 Theoretical Basis of Formative Assessment
Humanism, which attaches great importance to individual development, is the vitalbasis of formative assessment. Marion Williams & Robert L. Burden (1997) considerthat humanism focuses more attentions on the individual，s inner development in theirthoughts, feelings and emotions than in other aspect.Erik Erikson made a daring attempt to integrate Sigmund Freud's views on humanemotional development with educational psychology. In Erik Erikson's greatwork—Child and Society (1963)，he indicated that individuals' inchoate psychologicaldevelopment influences much on their later development of their lives. Later, AbrahMaslow (1968，1970)，who proposed a hierarchy of need, arguing for two kinds of needs,deficiency {or maintenance) needs and being {or growth) needs. Since the deficiencyneed is the indispensable p如 of human survival, the students who are hungry oruncomfortable cannot concentrate themselves on their aesthetic needs; while as a higherlevel of human needs，the being need requires the fulfillment of individual potential.
……….
Chapter 3 Research Design........ 24
3.1 Research Questions ........24
3.2 Subjects........ 25
3.3 Instruments........ 26
3.4 Procedures........ 26
3.4.1 Pre-assessment........ 26
3.4.2 During Assessment........ 27
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Discussion ........ 34
4.1 Analysis of Questionnaires........ 34
4.2 Dialogue Journals Enhance Mutual Understanding........ 43
4.3 Analysis of the Test ........47
4.4 Interviews Students' Preference of Formative Assessment........50
Chapter 5 Conclusion........ 53
5.1 Major Findings........ 53
5.2 Limitations of This Research ........ 54
5.3 Suggestions for Further Study........ 55
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Discussion
4.1 Analysis of Questionnaires
In this research, three questionnaires were used to test students' changes inlearning attitudes, willingness to cooperate and communicate with others andpreference of class activities. All the data are authentic and reliable. The authoranalyzes the data of pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire respectively and findsout the differences of the two stages by analyzing the data carefully.Questionnaire 1 (Appendix I)，which was designed before the assessment,consisted of three parts: Question 1 to question 4 focused on students' attitude to oralEnglish; Questions to question 7 revealed the fact whether they tend to exchangeideas with their classmates or teachers in English; Question 8 and question 9embodied some of students' appeals for improving their oral English abilities andteachers' instructional abilities.First，let us take a look at students' attitudes towards oral English. Table 4.1presents us the questionnaire results-
………..
Conclusion
Formative assessment plays an important role in stimulating students' learninginterests; clarifying their targets for learning and helping them understand theimportance of process rather than result of learning.Based on literature review and the author's research on oral English learning,a conclusion can be drawn: formative assessment has a positive influence as well.With different kinds of assessment tools，such as observation，dialogue journals,questionnaires, the author gladly finds that most students benefit much from theapplication of formative assessment to their oral English class and most studentsregain their confidence in speaking English. In other words，the implementation offormative assessment to oral English class is quite practical and truly promotes theimprovement of students' oral English abilities.
…………
Reference (omitted)