275 / 2018-09-01 21:40:54

Enhancing Students’ English Language Ability through Summary Writing 通过概要写作提升学生的英语能力

形成性评估，概要写作，英语能力,Formative assessment, summary writing, English language ability

全体主题 > 面向教学的语言测试与评价

Formative assessment is an important tool for classroom teaching and learning. This paper investigates how summary writing, a formative assessment task, can help enhance English-major students’ English language ability in an intensive reading course. As an “integrative” test format, summary writing can assess both learners’ reading comprehension and writing ability, which coincides with the goal of the Intensive Reading course the author is teaching. Therefore, the author tried out this summary writing task in her intensive reading course, which consisted of three cycles of “describing students’ summary writing processes – analyzing students’ summaries – designing / revising the marking criteria for summary writing” during one semester. Analysis of students’ engagement of each cycle revealed that the whole process helped students understand the process of summary writing and internalize the marking criteria, helped with their independent practicing outside class, and gave them a sense of improvement in reading comprehension and summary writing.

形成性评估是课堂教学的重要手段。本文考查了在英语专业的精读课上如何运用课堂评估的一种形式，概要写作，来提高学生的英语能力。作为一种“综合性”测试形式，“概要写作”既能考查阅读理解能力，也能考查写作能力。这一特点正好与笔者所教的精读课的目标一致。为此，在为期一学期的教学中，笔者在自己的班上就概要写作这项任务进行了三次循环，每次包含“描述学生概要写作的过程 — 分析学生写的课文概要 — 制定或修订概要评分标准”这三个步骤。通过分析学生参与每次循环时的感受，笔者发现这一过程能帮助学生明晰概要写作的过程，内化概要写作的评分标准，帮助学生课外进行独立的训练和提高，而学生也感到自己的阅读理解能力和概要写作能力有提高。