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In this paper, I will show how formative assessment can be used to support writing skill development in English gifted classes in Lam Son Gifted High School LASGH.. Starting with a discu

In this paper, I will show how formative assessment can be used to support writing skill development in English gifted classes in Lam Son Gifted High School (LASGH) Starting with a discussion of the differences between two major means of assessment – formative and summative ones, the paper goes

on to describe a case where formative assessment proved highly effective in forming learners’ writing skills – one of the four key aspects in learning a foreign language in general and English in particular

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

There are two reasons for the writing skill to be chosen as the subject of the study

First and foremost, writing is always the most challenging and demanding skill on the way of mastering a foreign language Indeed, compared with the other three skills, being reading, listening, and speaking, it is a fact that, very often, you do not need to know every single word in a reading text to understand what it is about Similarly, when listening to a speech or a talk of any length, you do not need to catch all the words, from grammatical to content ones, to figure out what the speaker means When it comes to speaking skill, some minor mistakes during your speech is not likely to make any difference to the message you want to deliver, nor will they make listeners lower their appreciation of your ideas, especially when you are a non-native speaker However, the same case can never be applied to writings An old saying goes this way, “The pen is mightier than the sword” Not mention to the true meaning in the depth of the saying, just consider the meaning on the surface, the simple implication is that your writing can give you power to rule or to attack others on the one hand, but can kill you yourself on the other hand The lesson is that, when making a composition, you have to pay every attention to every small writing detail, regardless of a comma, a full stop, or the expression of a specific passage In all, though perfection in writing is hard to achieve even for a native writer, the writing skill always requires the better and encourages the pen holder to be better

important part in the final examination of high school graduates, it is essential to reconstruct the program in order to invest satisfactorily in this no less significant but much more problematic skill

To sum up, in this day and age, teaching English learners to write effectively becomes such an urgent task that no English teacher should ignore

2 Aims of the Study

The study aims at answering the following two questions:

• What are the main differences between formative and summative assessments?

• How formative assessment contributes to improving the writing skill

of English language learners?

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

1 Differences between formative and summative assessments

1.1 Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning More specifically, formative assessment can:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work;

• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic;

• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture;

• turn in a research proposal for early feedback, etc

1.2 Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end

of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value Examples of summative assessments may include a midterm exam, final project, a paper, a senior recital, and so on It is also

when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses

2 A Case Study - Formative assessment application in the process of teaching the writing skill for English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School

Here is the procedure of how formative assessment can be carried out at the end of the writing process, i.e when each student has produced a writing of their own

2.1 Setting a sample

At this stage, the teacher choose one of the students’ writings, of which he/she may want to make some copies and give out each student one so that they can keep track during the sample making process of how formative assessment takes place

Next, the teacher asks the whole group of students to read look over the writing first and make some comments on the general points like the format

of the writing, the type of language, etc The teacher gathers the ideas and takes some notes at the end of the writing

Then, the teacher reads aloud the first sentence of the writing and calls for some more comments from students on the sentence The teacher may remind the students to pay attention to some grammatical features as well as some linguistic uses

The similar jobs should follow with the rest sentences of the writing

In the end, the teacher should give a general view or feedback on the whole writing Make sure that it represents the common idea of the whole class

2.2 Negotiating on a common set of codes/signals used the correction

Odd though it may seem, this small step contributes quite a lot to saving time and energy of both the teacher and students in giving and taking the feedback Some certain codes or signals should be agreed on so that the message conveyance of the corrector and the writer can take as little time as possible, but take as much effect as it should Some suggestions may be like these:

S-V agr

# exp wc wf etc

Subject – verb agreement error Number error of nouns Expression problem Word choice error Word form error

2.3 Correcting the errors

After the writings are given back to the authors, they will consider the feedback of their classmates and try to find ways of correcting them There are sometimes disagreements between the correctors and the authors Then, the teacher should raise the students’ awareness of mutual negotiation, when students come together and talk about the error and try to reach an agreement on the conflict

2.4 Submitting the final draft:

After each peer correction, it is necessary that the teacher ask the students to produce another draft based on the peer feedback and comment and then submit it to the teacher, who plays the final role of making sure that all the mistakes have been corrected appropriately

The whole process may be repeated until a satisfactory draft has been achieved

PART 3: CONCLUSION

Having been experimented in real classrooms at LASGH, this application of formative assessment has proved effective in helping students raise their own consciousness of the mistakes they and their peers may often make during the production of a writing Hereby, they will improve their writing skill as time goes by