THE EFFECT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN RAISING STUDENTS' READING MOTIVATION IN EFL CLASS: THE CASE OF SELKA AND HISU SECONDARY SCHOOLS GRADE NINE STUDENTS

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of effective implementation of formative assessment in raising students’ motivation in EFL reading classes in selected secondary schools in Sinana Woreda, Bale zone of Oromia regional State. The study employed descriptive survey research. The subjects in this study were 75 students and six EFL teachers. Data were collected through questionnaire, observation check lists and document analysis. Percentages were used as the main method of analysis even though qualitative data were analyzed qualitatively. The results indicated that most of school teachers implement formative assessment with the given formats but the way of assessing students learning, use of different assessment methods in classrooms and the time of formative assessment result recording vary from teachers to teachers. Moreover, most of the teachers didn’t include a variety of formative assessment tools in their plan and did not use in the classroom activities regularly and also they record students’ results at one session i.e., at end of each month and semester. Furthermore, some of school teachers have used formative assessment to identify students’ learning difficulties and learning interests while others have used it to assign mark to students’ learning achievement. Thus, there is discrepancy between the perceived purpose of formative assessment and what the teachers have used for. It was also difficult to get well-handled documents and properly kept assessment records or portfolios of the students, and the system of reporting learners’ achievement for their parents’ regularly with appropriate detail is completely weak. Therefore, it could be noted from the findings of the study that EFL teachers at the selected secondary schools have no adequate understandings about formative assessments in raising students’ reading motivation. Moreover, the findings of the study revealed that formative assessment has not fully practiced because of the following major challenges: low utilization of guidelines, large class size, lack of follow up and evaluation, lack of time, lack of awareness, lack of teaching and learning materials, job burden, teachers commitment and students readiness. To overcome these challenges, generally it is better to recruit additional teachers to reduce workload, making stakeholders aware and committed, fulfilling teaching and learning materials, identifying students based on their academic achievements and providing successive remediation and enrichment activities, providing students’ formative assessment reports to concerned bodies regularly and evaluating together, training teachers and raising their awareness, improving teachers managing of students, mobilizing students and making conducive classrooms to facilitate students’ improvement of reading skills. 1