初中生英语学习自我评价能力的培养

初中生英语学习自我能力的培养 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业 玉 溪 师 范 学 院 本 科 毕 业 论 文 初中生英语学习自我评价能力的培养 姓 名: 王 晓 学 号:2002061137 指导教师姓名: 付 丽 彬 职 称: 讲 师 单 位: 英 语 系 专 业 名 称 : 英 语 教 育 申请学位级别: 学 士 论文提交日期: 2006年5月 学位授予单位: 玉溪师范学院 二??六年五月 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 On Cultivation of English Learners’ Self-Assessment Ability in Junior High School Wang Xiao Supervisor Fu Libin A Thesis Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of B.A. in English ENGLISH DEPARTMENT YUXI TEACHERS’ COLLEGE May 2006 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 Acknowledgements First of all, I want to give my thanks to Ms. Fu Libin, My supervisor, who spares no time and energy, out of her heavy load of teaching to provide substantial guidance on my thesis. I still feel sorry that my first draft was not clear for her to read. She corrected the errors in my thesis carefully and gave me a lot of invaluable advice on my thesis. The detailed advice and constant help from her have been both academically authoritative and generous. I am willing to pay my respect to Professor Wang Ju who has been teaching us for three years. She has given us a lot of advice that made my thesis go smoothly. During the preparation of the paper, Professor Liu Qixuan has guided me on my topic. She helped me to make a clear blueprint of my thesis. I also wish to take this opportunity here to thank her. Finally, I wish to thank our college, for she has provided us with essential reference books that make the writing of the thesis possible. ii 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 Abstract Based on the theory of the self-assessment of teaching methodology and psychology of junior middle school students, this thesis first introduces the student self-assessment, the types of self-assessment and its application in English teaching. Then it points out the importance for cultivating student self-assessment from the prospective of the psychological character of junior high school students and the effect of successful self-assessment. The methods of cultivating student self-assessment and teachers? role in cultivating it are also included in the thesis. Key words: self-assessment; English teaching; cultivation iii 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 摘 要 在英语新课程的实施过程中，培养学生的自我评价能力已经得到了肯定，但尚未引起多数教师的足够重视。本文根据英语教学法的评价理论和心理学关于初中生心理分析的理论，论述了学生自我评价能力在英语教学中的作用。阐述了几种自我评价方式。同时，对如何培养学生的自我评价能力及在此过程中教师的角色也展开了进一补的论述。 关键词:自我评价能力;英语教学;培养 iv 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 Contents 独创性声明 ..................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iiiii 摘 要 ....................................................................................................................................................... iiiv 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 2. Cultivation of students? self –assessment ability ................................................................. 1 2.1 Reasons for cultivating student self-assessment ......................................................... 1 2.2 Classification of self-assessment................................................................................ 4 2.3 Methods of cultivating student self –assessment ...................................................... 10 2.4 Teachers? role in the student self-assessment ........................................................... 12 2.5 More attention to the student self-assessment .......................................................... 14 3. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 15 References ........................................................................................................................... 16 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 1. Introduction As self-assessment is not the content of the examination, it is often ignored by both teachers and students in English teaching. According to Rod Ellis (2000), self-assessment refers to the English learners? acts that are used to identify their situation of study, including finding their knowledge deficiency and learning progress. The important role that self-assessment plays in English teaching shows that it can be applied to avoid some bias of teachers on students, and it can arouse students? interests and make a spontaneous English study environment. It is necessary because teachers cannot evaluate all the students by the same rule and standard. And sometimes some of the students? traits cannot be displayed. Their shortcoming of academic knowledge cannot be fully found from the homework or the test. To complete the assessment system, the most effective way is to cultivate the learners? self-assessment ability, so that they can concentrate on their learning and make decisions on their future learning. 2. Cultivation of students’ self –assessment ability 2.1 Reasons for cultivating student self-assessment Most of the time, the assessment is made by the teachers through the test or homework. Then one problem exists. That is, few students would think about their study. And they would rarely study spontaneously, so they cannot make much more progress. The student self-assessment is one part of self-access and it is also required by the special psychology of junior high school students. Cultivation of self-assessment becomes essential. If a self-assessment is made successfully, it will produce a great effect on English teaching and 1 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 learning. 2.1.1 Requirement of self-access As is mentioned in the introduction, student self-assessment plays an important role in English teaching. First, cultivating the students? self –assessment is the requirement of the self-access learning. Self-access can be explained simply as the theory that students acquire second language spontaneously. Student self-access assessment is just a small scale of self-access. According to David Gardner (2001), self-access is a new approach to studying for many learners, because a traditional feedback system has its own shortage, because it is a teacher-led education system. “Student self-assessment can provide learners with feedback on how they are doing and may lead them to reassess their approach or to motivate them to further study. It can be seen as useful language practice and practice for taking examinations. We can see clearly that cultivating the ability of student self-assessment is the requirement of the self-access. Since self-access is an effective way of second language learning, self-assessment as an important part of self-access, is more necessary in English teaching. In modern education, much importance has been attached to the learner-centered education. Gardner and Miller (2001) emphasize that students should be considered as the main part of education and should be given full freedom. This is a theory in accordance with the self-access theory. They also advocate that the self-assessment procedure involves learners in learning more than any other procedures do. Self-access makes it possible that students can learn and assess whenever they want and wherever they are. “The primary purpose should be to provide information about the achievement of learners both in terms of absolute ability of any given time and in terms of 2 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 improvement over a period of study (David Gardner 2001)”. So cultivating the ability of self-assessment is an important process of self-access learning. It?s a necessary part of English teaching. 2.1.2 Requirement of character of junior high school students What the students learn in junior high school is about the basic academic knowledge. Meanwhile it is a period of making a foundation for a further learning in higher school. So it is the most important period to cultivate students? self-assessment ability. Experienced teachers understand the special psychological character of the students in this period and seize this opportunity to cultivate their self-assessment ability. From the perspective of psychology, it has been known that learners? independence in study improves with their age. That means their ability of self-learning is growing. One of the important reasons is that they want to be independent and to free themselves from their parents? control. They have possessed the ability of judgment. This is a critical period of forming their ability of self-assessment. The ability of self-learning produces more obvious effect on the result of learning. They can manage their learning activity independently (黄煜 峰,1993). Therefore, they need the self-assessment ability while they are learning by themselves. The effect of student self-assessment ability on learning is great, because the formation and development of their independent learning ability depends on their ways and procedure of learning. Whether they can extract the experience from the mistake, or whether they can improve the way of learning after making mistakes is the key to improving. And in order to do that, they must learn how to assess their learning by themselves. That means the cultivation of self-assessment becomes necessary during this period. 3 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 2.1.3 Effect of successful self-assessment No matter how independent the junior high students are, it is a truth that they cannot control themselves most of the time. But once they have cultivated a habit of thinking, thinking about the procedure of study, they would have a successful self-assessment. That means once they have had enough experience and ability of self-assessment, they will get closed to the success, because they have the clearest goal of study. This is the key to the question. The practice of a successful self-assessment makes students have a clear direction of study. They can make a sound plan to make up for their shortage of knowledge. It can also motivate learners to do more or to change their study habit. When their progress has not been found by teachers, their self-assessment ability will work. Then the students would get the confidence and right assessment on themselves. They can make an exact decision on the further learning. What they should do or should not do will be clear. And the examination cannot reveal the problems and the students? achievement completely. For instance, in the examination, some of the students have too much pressure that they cannot complete the examination as usual or at their normal level. In this case, only the students can identify the real level of their knowledge. The successful self-assessment can help them analyze what they have mastered and what they have not. Only by the self-assessment, teacher can get the objective information to meet students? needs. Of course, this requires a perfect and successful self-assessment. It fully depends on what means the teacher use and how the teacher guide students to make the self-assessment. 2.2 Classification of self-assessment The ways to classify the self-assessment are different in different books and there are a lot of versions about it. In this thesis some normal and useful ones are displayed. They are: teacher-prepared assessment, learner-prepared assessment and portfolio assessment. 4 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 2.2.1 Teacher-prepared assessment Teacher-prepared assessment includes not only in-home prepared materials but also in-class materials. Teachers make all these materials after a unit or one day?s learning according to the content of the teaching. Teachers can put some test on the self-assessment paper. After the test, teachers help students analyze what they have learnt. A teacher-prepared assessment paper of the test of the Present Tense is shown in the following table: 5 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 Self-Assessment of Grammar Before you start 1. Please review the contents about the present tense on your notebook. 2. Please record your starting time. The test Section A Select the correct answer 1. He _______ to school every day of the week. (a) go (b)going (c)goes (d)is 2. ______ Joe and the other boys like swimming? (a)Are (b)Does (c)Is (d)Do Section B Correct the errors in the following text: Most of the people in my class likes swimming. Each of us go swimming quite often. Harry don?t go at all. He can?t even swim. I wants to teach him but I have no time. He need to learn sometimes, because it is useful when somebody are in dangerous in the river. After the test 1. If you were timing, how long did it take? 2. Check your answers. Give yourself a score. How did you do? Are you happy with your score? Why? 3. If you did well on section A but not on section B, why is that? (It might mean you know the rules but are not good at applying them. If that is true, what are you going to do about it?) 6 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 As the table above shows, teachers can write some questions that would be asked during the test. Then they provide students with the possible suggestion to the questions. This enables students to find the way to assess their learning. In such kind of self-assessment, teachers know the information about students? learning and their shortcoming. But it should be recognized students? special acts can not be avoided, as they want to gloss over their mistakes in order to get the appreciation from the teacher. And some students cannot understand what their teachers write down. So another way is to cultivate their own ability to make their own assessment paper, letting them prepare their own assessment according to their own abilities. 2.2.2 Learner-prepared assessment “Learners can develop their own methods of self-assessment then administer and score the assessment themselves (David Gardner, 2001)”. When doing this, learners may need some guidance, but once they start, it will become easy for them to find the suitable ways of assessing themselves. And sometimes they know more about what are important and necessary for them. They can make the paper that they are interested in. They can also make varied and different style of assessment paper. If the condition permits, they can make the assessment paper in the groups, or they will make an oral test about what they have learned. Then they would appreciate themselves with the result. When students? assessments of each other are accompanied with assessments made by their teacher, a high level of correlation is established. And if they share their tests with each other, they can be familiar with the ability of each other. Learner- prepared assessment makes it possible that nearly the whole class can and are willing to participate. This is the biggest advantage of it. And the learner-prepared assessment would be more delicate. It may include some subtler questions: Is this test easy or difficult? Is it useful for us? Am I going to make another self-assessment? Am I willing to share with my classmates? What do I need 7 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 to do in the future? How I will award myself marks? These questions can be changed according to their interests and the language learning habit and the kinds of test. And the form of it can be free, since the form itself is not important. Before they can do a perfect assessment paper, teacher must lead them to their suitable way and teach them what should be written on the paper. 2.2.3 Portfolio assessment Portfolio assessment must be the most usual and practical assessments. It?s frequently used in student self-assessment and peer assessment (David Nunan, 2001). But as far as this thesis is concerned, portfolio assessment has more effect on self-assessment. “The term „portfolio? refers to a folder of work. Portfolio assessment is an ongoing process of collecting materials for assessment (Dorthy Strickland, 2005).” Though the portfolio assessment has been researched perfectly and subtlety, the author still wants to display her extra opinion about it. Few researchers attach importance on portfolio assessment in English learning. On the contrary, they emphasize students? all-round ability. English acquisition is a long procedure, which needs learners? collection and ongoing working on vocabulary, grammar, reading skill and others aspects. So a long-period assessment is useful for English learning. Learner may decide, or perhaps be required, to keep a portfolio of their work for assessment. Learners use their portfolio to gather evidence of their achievement over a period of time. Their best sides are presented for assessment. The portfolio assessment is suitable for a final assessment. Before making the portfolio, teacher should guide students to complete the contents of portfolio. “Learners should think about some issues, the need for a portfolio, the time required to produce a portfolio, their selection of contents, the criteria for assessment (David Gardner, 2001).” In fact, there are also some important issues that David Gardner does not point out, such as the environment of making portfolio. Teachers should put their suggestions, encouraging words on the first page. As is shown in the following figure, the first 8 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 page teacher made gives a clear blueprint for students to make portfolio assessment, and the encouragement for them in written form from the teacher can excite the students. Making a self-assessment portfolio , Self-assessment portfolio is for you to show what you have been doing in self-learning, and the progress you have made. You should collect together things that help you do this. You should gather: 1. Copies of your study plans for every test 2. Result of tests you have taken 3. Study dairy of short paragraphs recording your thought about what you learned from it. 4. The materials of your most satisfied learning activity. 5. Your needs the English teacher could do for you. 6. Your plans for further learning 7. Others materials can be selected as your desire. , Hand it on before the final examination. , If you do as that, your goal is approaching to you. Come on! You can also do well as a teacher! Show me your perfect side of English learning! Portfolio assessments should allow learners to take responsibility for their own assessment by selecting the contents they want to present, so the seventh requirement on the above figure is necessary. The portfolio assessment requires the active participation of students. At the beginning of implement, students may not be interested in it. Thus a teacher should hold a series of activities about it. They can help students chose their materials that can give them confidence, and show their progress obviously. This is a good way to arouse their interests and to cultivate their ability of self-assessment. 9 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 2.3 Methods of cultivating student self –assessment In the description of types of self-assessment, some subtle ways in each type have been referred to. This part will describe them in general. These methods can be generally used in English assessment, even in the whole process of English teaching. 2.3.1 Cultivation of students’ interest in self assessment Interest is a primary factor that stimulates students to learn English spontaneously and perseveringly (张德秀,1982). In all procedure of English learning, assessment is somehow dull. It cannot attract student as easily as oral practice and other activities. So an effective teacher must try to find ways and means to make students get interested in it. For example, teachers can spend the last minutes of the class doing self-assessment. Students can be freer than the usual time, so they may listen to the teacher carefully. They would not be reluctant any more. This is the relaxing time as it is the break time. Teachers must create such a cheerful and relaxed environment for students. They have the right to listen to the light music during the time. This is the way in terms of time and environment. As for the form of activity, it should be varied and novel. Teachers should not perform the whole assessment in uniform way. Once a junior high student has told me that he likes English class, because his teacher always gives them big surprises. This is evidence that learners always pay more attention to the novelties. Teachers can change the methods to guide self-assessment activity. Based on the teaching plan, teachers can allow students to do an assessment report in turn. On the one hand, this is the chance for them to practice oral English; on the other hand, they may attach importance to the self-assessment. Obviously, they would try their best to do it well. Teachers can also do it through the competition in a group or in the whole class. Competition is one of the most active factors to make people progress. Teachers can guide them to compete in the test in public (like writing on the blackboard) then ask them to make their own assessment. After that, teachers should express his admiration at fit time for the excellent assessment. 10 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 2.3.2 Encouraging students ’ creative self- assessment Junior high school students have colorful imagination beyond our expectation ( 黄煜峰, 1993). This is the basic condition for encouragement on their creative self-assessment. To cultivate their creative ability is good for their self-assessment. They can create different forms of assessment papers. Some of them are beyond their teachers. Their assessment can reflect their own personality. Some of them cannot be received by our traditional concept. At this time, teacher should not blame them carelessly. After all, it reflects their thoughts about their study. Teachers should encourage them to do what they want to do. How does an effective teacher encourage students? creativity? He can express his idea that he would like to see the different answers for each question in the self- assessment paper. After that, he can make different comments to them, such as, “I am happy to see you working like that. Keep on trying! You are really improving! You are really going to town! You are getting better everyday! (罗少茜, 2004)”.You really make my job fun! You outdid yourself today! You are on right track now! These comments always inspire students to the right way. Having been encouraged, they would see self-assessment as an important procedure of study. Then their ability of self-assessment is increasing with the enhancement of creativity. Creativity is also a powerful factor for English learning itself. Therefore it can be employed in self-assessment. This is the essential point of cultivating the ability of student self-assessment. 2.3.3 Cultivation of students’ habit in self-assessment Once a habit is formed, it is difficult to change it any more. If self-assessment becomes a learner?s habit, it would company the learner for the rest of all his life. So a good teacher would prompt the students to form the habit of self-assessment. To make others form a certain habit must be frustrating. Here, some ways are put forward for reference only. First, teachers should give students plentiful of time on the self-assessment to a certain extent. But the cycle should not be too short. That means the 11 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 activity should not be so frequent that the learners would no longer be interested in it. Then, teachers should make some spot check for their implement. This is the key procedure that ensures students to finish their self-assessment on time. And during this process, it is feasible that some students can check by themselves. Sometimes the supervision from students can inspire them to study better. The junior high school students are fond of doing better than others. This psychological characteristic makes it easy for teachers to cultivate their habit of self-assessment. And teachers should make it a habitual thing at the end of a term that gives students some opportunities to make assessment paper for the whole class. Different students must be tested by different paper. This can help them form the good habit for final assessment because they are fond of the feeling of being a “teacher”. This is similar to student-participating teaching. It is a useful process to cultivate the learners? habit on self-assessment; meanwhile it is useful for the final examination. The last process is the feedback from the teacher for students? acts on self-assessment at the end of the term. To cultivate their habit is based on the good and harmonious environment. Teachers should encourage students to share their assessment or to assess each other. 2.4 Teachers’ role in the student self-assessment Whatever teachers do in English teaching, they must have a clear view about their role in the process. In the self-assessment, teachers are mainly required to organize, help and administer students, with an aim of making self-assessment reach to the greatest affection. 2.3.4 Teacher ? organizer Although students have the ability of self-access, teacher should undertake to organize the activity of self-assessment, because all the teaching procedures must be in accordance with the teaching plan. Only teachers can orient the whole process towards the right way of teaching. 12 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 When teachers organize and plan an activity for student self-assessment, they should use varied tactics. The minor teaching skill for making assessment paper, the varied way of displaying, the intensification of award, the comments on the result, the acceptance of the opinion from students are all ways to organize the student self-assessment better. And before the organization of the student self-assessment, teachers should take the students? experience, interests and character into consideration. Take, for example, the group assessment activity, and teachers should manage the situation of the group, such as the classification of the group, the personality and interests of the member of the group. Then they divide the students according to these factors. And sometimes students should be allowed to group by their own desire. It is the same for individual self-assessment. Any forms of self-assessment should be under the control of the teachers in order to comply with the teaching plan. A teacher, as an organizer, should have good insight to make sure the students are on the track of real self-assessment. 2.3.5 Teacher?helper In all the procedures, teachers must take the responsibility to help students. In this sense, a teacher?s role as a helper is not special and should not be over described. But in this thesis, it refers to the fact that teachers should not intervene in their activities but help them finish their own assessment. Teachers can help students by communicating with them. Teachers should inquire into the process of thoughts and emotion, and help them soften their study pressure which comes from the dissatisfaction of their study after the self-assessment. It is the teacher?s responsibility that helps them find the causes and sets up the target of the further learning. If they have reached their goals established by themselves, teachers should help them to establish new goals. The necessary condition that teachers can help students fully is to get their complete trust. 13 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 When the teacher is trusted by the students, he can get the reliable information about their needs in self-assessment. So teachers should have enough patience to learn their demands and help them acquire English .As a helper, the teacher should also care about students? improvement appeared in the process of self-assessing, and give them great esteem on their own assessment. 2.3.6 Teacher?manager The management of self-assessment means to control what would happen in classroom, because a normal class cannot be in a mass. The rules must be made by the teacher. That means teachers must play a role of a manager. But in the self-assessment of English class, teachers should not limit students on their free talking. Teachers should make sure that the class goes smoothly. Though students can make their own assessment, it does not mean they can disobey the rules of the class. An effective teacher would draw up the rules and have them enforced. This is the basic condition of a class. This also ensures the normal process of the self-assessment. 2.5 More attention to the student self-assessment This part is mainly discussed from teachers? responsibility and ethical issues. First of all, teachers should ensure the result of assessment to be judged from all aspects. Teachers should not only judge the ability or shortcoming from the self-assessment paper. Then, teachers are responsible for the confidentiality of information collected by them in the self-assessment process, especially in the portfolio assessment. Thirdly, “Assessment activities involving members of a class, participants should be treated equally and receive equal learning opportunities. Also, if the self-assessment requires that students be selected from a group, the selection process should be based on fair criteria ( 罗少茜，2004)”. Then, it is an important issue that teachers should know that learning and improvement receive first consideration during self-assessment. Self-assessment is made for supporting effective teaching and 14 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 learning. It is not an isolated procedure from English teaching. At last, teachers should keep closed connection with students? parents to control their change and process of in-home self-assessment. These attentions should be paid in a higher degree. Otherwise it would make the self-assessment move towards the way we do not expect. This is not the aim of self-assessment. 3. Conclusion Based on what has been mentioned above, the significance of self-assessment has been proved clearly. Therefore, great attention should be paid to cultivation of the ability of self-assessment. The method of cultivating such ability needs to be explored creatively by the teachers. This thesis displays some common ways of the student self-assessment used generally in English teaching. The role of a teacher in self-assessment is an important part. If a teacher has not identified his role, he cannot make a good assessment, let alone cultivating students? self-assessment ability. Self-assessment should be treated equally as other teaching procedures in English teaching. 15 玉溪师范学院英语系本科生毕业论文 References Nunan, David. Second Language Teaching and Learning. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2001. Nunan, David. The Learner-Centered Curriculum. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社. 2001. Gardner, David. and Miller, Lindsay. Establishing Self-access From Theory To Practice. 上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2001. Ellis, Rod. Second Language Acquisition. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 2000. 罗少茜. 英语课堂教学形成性评价研究. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社, 2004 黄煜峰. 初中生心理学. 浙江教育出版社, 1993. 16