Based on the papers on formative assessment in foreign language teaching published in 18 Chinese foreign language journals from 2002 to 2016, this paper gives a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the researches on formative assessment in foreign language teaching in the fifteen years in China from the perspectives of research trends, subjects, areas, contents and methodologies. The results indicate that: (1) the amount of papers keeps increasing on the whole; (2) the research perspectives are multi-disciplinary; (3) empirical studies account for a large part; (4) the subjects are foreign language learners of different educational backgrounds; (5) dynamic real-time assessment studies develop faster than process assessment ones. The paper also discusses the limitations and suggestions of the existing researches in the contents and areas, the perspectives, the subjects, the conclusions, the policies and the conditions. Finally, the paper proposes some further research directions in foreign language formative assessment in China．