The Importance of Formative Assessment in Developing EFL Learners’ Writing Skill
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Date
2020
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UNIVERSITY OF ABBES LAGHROUR-KHENCHELA
Abstract
Abstract The current study aims to investigate the importance of formative assessment in developing EFL learners’ writing skill. It sheds light on students’ attitudes towards the process of formative assessment and their opinions about the feedback they receive from their teachers during instruction. The study as well, checks the teachers’ implementation of formative assessment while teaching writing. Hence, we hypothesize that if teachers use formative assessment effectively, students’ writing performance would be highly improved. To verify the hypothesis, two questionnaires were used as tools of investigation: one for five secondary school teachers and the other one for thirty EFL students. The findings revealed that students are aware of the process of formative assessment and recognize its positive impact on their writing development. Moreover, they believe that their teachers’ feedback during this process enhances largely their writing abilities. On the other hand, the results also revealed their teachers implement formative assessment frequently using different techniques. They recognize that the feedback they give is of a paramount importance in enhancing the students’ writing proficiency. Thus, teachers should always implement formative assessment accompanied with providing feedback when teaching writing as they both enable learners to develop their written productions.