Abstract
Formative assessment (FA) has been used to facilitate EFL learning and teaching. However, due to factors such as task complexity and time constraints, FA implementation faces a variety of challenges, especially in countries with an exam-oriented education system. Drawing on the case of EFL teachers from Chinese public secondary schools, this study examines the features of FA practice and explains their underlying aspects in an EFL exam-oriented context from a social psychology perspective. It adopts a mixed-methods research approach. Guided by the theory of planned behavior, 10 English teachers from Guangdong province in China were interviewed to establish an item pool for a structured questionnaire. A total of 161 English teachers from four cities in Guangdong province took part in the subsequent survey. The results revealed that the participating teachers have an implicit understanding of FA, based primarily on its literal meaning and their own teaching experience. They know and follow FA methods but lack confidence about their own practice. Regional differences were significant. Possible reasons for the perceptions and practices of Chinese EFL teachers from public secondary schools are the teachers’ own attitudes, the influence of other stakeholders, and the limitations of the FA methods. The study elucidates the features of FA practice and its mechanism in an EFL exam-oriented context.
Highlights
As an effective learning-improvement strategy and a useful teaching-aid, formative assessment (FA) has recently received growing attention in the EFL classroom
The highest mean scores are shown in order with item 9 (“I collect students’ excellent essays and compile them into a book.”) (M = 3.94), followed by item 8 (“I make a portfolio for each student and collect their work to mark their progress.”) (M = 3.92), and item 7 (“I design questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy to assess students’ classroom performance.”) (M = 3.87)
The present study explored Formative assessment (FA) practice in Chinese public secondary schools from the teachers’ perspective, examining factors that may influence its implementation under the framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB)
Summary
As an effective learning-improvement strategy and a useful teaching-aid, formative assessment (FA) has recently received growing attention in the EFL classroom. Teachers are being encouraged to improve the effectiveness of their instruction by integrating teaching and assessment [Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (MoE), 2017]. For decades, English teachers in Chinese secondary schools have been obsessed with large-scale high-stakes testing. In this context, teaching has been teacher-centered, test-centered, and textbook-centered (Cheng, 2010). The benefits of integrating FA into the EFL classroom lie in the significant effect on improving students’ learning and selfregulation skills (Black and Wiliam, 1998; Hattie and Timperley, 2007). In view of the historical background, how teachers perceive FA and how they adapt FA methods to a real classroom need to be explored
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