1 Introduction

Formative assessment is a teaching activity that analyzes and explains learning performance during the teaching process to guide learning. It has been empirically proven to significantly improve students' learning efficiency. The importance of formative assessment in English teaching in Chinese universities has been widely recognized and included in teaching guidelines. This study focuses on 10 college English textbooks and analyzes the characteristics of formative assessment activity design, aiming to provide reference for textbook writing and teaching practice.

2 Literature Review

Formative assessment promotes learning in the teaching process, unlike large-scale standardized exams. Black&William's meta-analysis shows that it has a significant promoting effect on learning. Research focuses on evaluation forms such as peer evaluation, feedback, and skill oriented formative evaluation practices. Formative assessment in college English teaching has received attention from domestic research, and empirical studies have summarized its characteristics based on real classrooms. But teachers lack evaluation training and support, making it difficult to effectively carry out formative evaluation activities. The assessment literacy of college English teachers is relatively low. Textbooks have a guiding role in teaching, but teachers rarely engage in textbook adaptation activities. Whether formative assessment activities are fully and effectively included in textbook design directly affects the implementation of formative assessment in teaching practice. Scholars emphasize the inclusion of formative assessment in textbooks to cultivate students' self-learning abilities, and the design of textbook activities should focus on self-assessment space. However, there is a lack of empirical research on formative assessment activities in textbooks. This article will explore the characteristics of formative assessment activities in college English textbooks and conduct a comparative analysis of the textbooks.

3 Research Design

Elaborated on the research design, including research questions, research subjects, and data collection and analysis methods. The research focuses on the design, characteristics, and frequency of formative assessment activities in college English textbooks. The research subjects are 10 mainstream university English textbooks in China, covering different publishers, classic and new textbooks. Data collection includes practice activities in textbooks and teaching suggestions for teachers' books. The coding framework is used to analyze the five elements of formative evaluation activities: clarifying goals, obtaining performance, evaluating performance, providing feedback, and promoting learning actions. The coding framework is based on formative evaluation theory, and specific dimensional indicators are determined through grounded theory analysis. Two coders independently encoded, and the Cohen's kappa coefficient of the inter code reliability test was 0.92, ensuring coding consistency.

4 research findings

Research has found that 10 college English textbooks contain 88 formative assessment activities, with significant differences in frequency. Textbook J has an average of over four activities per unit, while Textbook G only has two activities in the entire book. Newly published textbooks may place greater emphasis on the design of formative assessment activities. The distribution of various elements is uneven, with only 51% of activities including "learning promotion actions" and half of activities meeting the standards. The evaluation objectives are mostly based on specific tasks, with written output as the main focus, and language proficiency as the main evaluation criterion. Half of the activities require open-ended feedback, while the other half involve learning promotion actions, with the main goal of improving task performance. The evaluation activities are mainly based on specific task objectives, which come in various forms. The acquisition of performance is mainly based on written output, and the evaluation of performance has clear standards, with language proficiency as the main focus. Feedback is mostly open-ended, with students being the main recipients. The promotion of learning action focuses on improving task performance, and some activities require both students and teachers to carry out follow-up actions.

5 Discussions

This chapter explores the experience and shortcomings of designing formative assessment activities for college English textbooks. Research has found that formative assessment activities have become essential in textbooks, but early textbooks were influenced by summative assessment. The new textbooks reflect the integration of teaching evaluation, such as textbooks H and J. Formative evaluation activities mainly focus on written output, but oral, reading, and audio-visual comprehension abilities should also be evaluated. The language ability of formative assessment activities in textbook H is relatively balanced. The five elements of formative assessment activities are unevenly distributed, and special attention should be paid to "providing feedback" and "promoting learning actions". Good feedback should provide accurate and reliable evaluation results and sufficient information, while vague scores and limited information on whether to judge the promotion of learning. The action of promoting learning after feedback is very important, and feedback can only play a formative role when the feedback information is used to improve learning. Teachers play an important role in evaluation activities, but the role of teacher's books in the design of formative evaluation activities varies greatly among the 10 textbooks. The third type of situation can comprehensively cover the elements of formative assessment activities, and has greater guidance and reference significance for teachers to carry out teaching practice.

6 Insights and Suggestions

Based on research findings, suggestions have been proposed for the design of formative evaluation activities for college English textbooks. Suggest increasing the proportion of formative evaluation in teaching, achieving integration of teaching evaluation, and making evaluation a necessary part of teaching activities. In instructional design, the integration of evaluation and teaching can be implicit or explicit, connecting learning activities through evaluation links to form a complete activity chain. At the same time, incorporating evaluation literacy such as reflection and evaluation ability into teaching content can improve students' evaluation literacy. Enrich the ability goals of formative assessment, promote the development of comprehensive abilities such as language proficiency, critical thinking, and cross-cultural competence. In task design, specific evaluation criteria should be developed based on task objectives and content, reflecting diverse abilities and literacy goals. Emphasize effective feedback in evaluation and subsequent learning promotion actions, establish a virtuous cycle of learning, evaluation, knowledge, and action, avoid vague descriptive language, provide specific directions for evaluation, design follow-up action steps and further evaluation plans. Strengthen the role of teachers in evaluation, enhance their evaluation literacy and practice, and strengthen the design of teaching materials to provide guidance and support for teachers. Teachers play multiple roles in evaluation activities, master evaluation methods, guide students in evaluation activities, and design formative evaluation activities.

7 Conclusion

Analyzing the design of formative assessment activities in 10 college English textbooks, it was found that there are differences in frequency and characteristics between textbooks, and the new textbook emphasizes the integration of teaching evaluation. Formative evaluation activities need to be improved in terms of feedback and learning promotion actions. The study provides ideas for developing formative evaluation in college English teaching, including increasing the frequency of evaluation activities, integrating evaluation and teaching, expanding evaluation objectives, emphasizing feedback and action, and empowering teachers to evaluate practice. Future research can focus on the design and implementation of formative assessment in new forms of textbooks, using digital information technology to collect data throughout the entire process, analyze learner performance, empower teaching decisions, and promote the development of formative assessment.