The Impact of the Formative Assessment in Speaking Test on Saudi Students’ Performance

Abstract

The current research takes place at the English language department at Taibah University, Saudi Arabia, where all students are enrolled in undergraduate studies and must study English language course as a core module in their first year. One of the most challenging tests faced by Saudi students in their studies, is the summative speaking test. The test is consisting of three tasks in which students required to go through them all. Accordingly, there is a need to seek approaches to enhance students’ performance in the speaking test. In other words, formative assessment has not been used to overcome the challenges faced by the Saudi students at Taibah University in the speaking test. This research aims to investigate whether a formative speaking assessment has a significant impact on students’ performance in the summative test. Also, it aims to monitor student learning and to provide constructive feedback that can be used by teachers to improve students’ learning and help the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in speaking skills. This study concludes that formative assessment helps Saudi students to overcome the challenges they face in speaking test. It is also recommend constructive feedback to improve their speaking performance.