Pros And Cons Of Formative Assessment

Part III: Conclusion and Recommendations
3.1. Conclusion remarks Formative assessment plays an important role in teaching and learning process. Firstly, formative assessment is applied to clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success. Secondly, formative assessment also helps to engineer classroom activities that elicit evidence of learning. Thirdly, formative assessment can provide feedback that moves students forward. Fourthly, formative assessment is used to activate students as instructional resources for one another and as owners of their own learning. Finally, formative assessment can help teachers adjust and improve their teaching.
There are really some obstacles in applying formative assessment to English major students, for instance, teachers are not familiar with formative assessment, students feel bored or stressed and so on. However, teachers should actively use formative assessment to assess their students’ learning in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning process.
3.2. Recommendations
Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers or students use assessment-based evidence to adjust what they are currently doing. From the point of view mentioned above, we
Teachers' skills in drawing inferences from students' responses are crucial to the effectiveness of formative assessment. No matter what the assessment strategy -- observation, dialogue, asking for a demonstration or a written response -- teachers must examine students' responses from the perspective of what they show about their conceptions, misconceptions, skills, and knowledge. This involves a careful analysis of the responses in relation to the criteria for success. In essence, teachers need to infer what the "just right gap" is between the current learning and desired goals, identifying students' emerging understanding or skills so that they can build on these by modifying instruction to facilitate