The Impact of Formative and Summative Assessment on Vocabulary Enhancement in EFL Classroom: case of LMD3 students at the department of English at Tlemcen University

Abstract

Foreign language teaching and learning have changed from teacher-centered to learner/learning-centered environments. Relying on language theories, research findings, and experiences, educators developed teaching strategies and learning environments that engaged learners in interactive communicative language tasks. Assessment plays an integral part on the student learning carrier. It is used to evaluate the student and the teacher during the teaching/learning process, and it gives valuable information for both sides; for the learner it helps him/her to be aware about the weaknesses and straights. For the teacher, it serves to collect the data about his students and start working from this point. In this particular prospect, the current investigation discusses the impact of formative and summative assessment on vocabulary learning of the EFL learnersin general and on vocabulary acquisition in particular. For this purpose, a case study including forty L3 students from the department of English, University of Tlemcen was undertaken. Two research instruments were used to collect the needed data, a questionnaire for the students and an interview for the teachers. The collected data were both analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings reveal that assessment in general has a positive impact on students, by trying to improve the students learning and the teacher’s development. It also highlight that formative assessment has better ways in developing student’s vocabulary improvement which makes it more effective than summative assessment in EFL classrooms.