ChapterOne Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Where there is teaching, there is Assessment; where there is Assessment, there isbackwash. The Senior English Curriculum Standard indicates that assessment is animportant constituent part of English curriculum, and that a scientific assessmentsystem is an important guarantee to achieve curriculargoals. This is best fulfilled byformative assessment which is more scientific, inclusive and reasonable in evaluatingthe learning process and outcome when compared with the traditional summativeassessment which is score-centered. Its general goal is to make the students fullyunderstand the purpose of study, develop independent study and co-operative study,form effective English learning strategy, and cultivate their integrated ability to usethe language. The form of integrated ability is based on the all-round development oflanguage skills, language knowledge, emotional attitude, learning strategy andcultural consciousness. The assessment of English Curriculum is to supervise thewhole teaching course and its results effectively, according to the goals andrequirements of curriculumstandard.Therefore, to gatherthe information of learners fully, a variety of assessing toolsare needed. New English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schoolindicates definitely that the stress of assessment is notsimply atestby paperandpens.There are a variety of tools to collect information for formative assessment. Someresearchers explained the formative assessment tools in theirworks orpapers (Weir&Roberts, 1994; Richards, 1984; Genesee & Upshur, 2017). The following is devotedto some tools that are widely used in formative assessment. They are testing, journals,observations, interviews and questionnaires, portfolios, evaluation sheets, ratingscales and tasks. These assessing tools can be divided into two categories--testingtools and non-testing tools. As an assessment tool ortechnique to collect information,testing has its own historical preponderance without question.
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1.2 Research Significance
Formative assessment is still not familiar enough to scholars and teachers inChina. It is obvious that mostprofessional work on formative assessment is limited tothe theoretical level. More empirical researches are needed to demystify formativeassessment especially to investigate the current situation of implementation offormative assessment in secondary education to provide information on theobstructive factors of formative assessment. What is more, although testing is oftenregarded as a means in summative assessment, there is no denying that it is also thetesting tool in formative assessmentwhich can facilitate to assess the learning processof students. Among these testing tools, the most common forms are regulartesting, avery common way to assess the learning process of students, which will providefeedback information to both teachers and students. However, there are fewresearches carried outfocusing on the regulartesting.Whether regular testing has fulfilled its function to gather valuable informationforformative assessment can be reflected by investigating its backwash effects. Fromthe above literature review concerning test backwash effects, it can be seen thatattentions are mainly focused on some high-stakes tests such as the National CollegeEntrance Examination and CET. In other words, the，英语论文范文，英语论文范文
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