【Abstract】Evaluation is an important component in teaching and teaching also cannot leave evaluation. However， summative assessment has taken dominant place in college English in our country for a long time. It emphasizes students’ scores excessively， which bruises students’ learning initiative. Therefore， formative assessment which emphasizes learning itself and learning process has been paid more and more attention from scholars and teachers. This research tries to discuss formative assessment from these aspects such as the definition of formative assessment， the instruments of formative assessment， the modes of formative assessment， the theoretical bases of formative assessment and so on. This study also discusses the application of formative assessment in College English Teaching to explore its feasibility and effectiveness in College English Teaching.
　　【Key words】Formative Assessment； Summative Assessment； College English Teaching
　　1. The Introduction of Formative Assessment
　　The term， formative assessment， which appears in the College English Curriculum Requirements （2007） is used in this paper.Black and William （1998） claimed that “All the activities that teachers and students undertake can be called formative assessment because it provides information which can be considered as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities.” Gipps （1999） defined formative assessment as the one that was used by teachers and students to appraise， judge or evaluate students’ behaviors in class or their works after class in order to improve their learning. Boston （2002） simply defined formative assessment as the diagnostic use of assessment to provide feedback for teachers and students over the course of instruction.
　　2. The Instruments of Formative Assessment
　　1） Portfolio
　　The aim of portfolios is to record the process of learning and it is the basis of evaluating students’ efforts， progress， learning process and result. Students may realize learning strengths and weaknesses in some period and work out the learning plan suitable for themselves through building and reviewing portfolios. Teachers may know every student’ learning progress and differences in some period clearly and specifically according to portfolios.
　　2） Questionnaire
　　Questionnaires can be used freely， before the term， in the mid of the term or after the term. A variety of questionnaires are designed according to different aims. Its contents usually include motivations， interests， autonomous learning abilities，， cooperative abilities， and so on. Questionnaires are usually divided into structured questionnaire， semi-structured questionnaire， semi-open questionnaire and open questionnaires.