A Study Of The Washback Effects Of Oral Test In Primary Schools In Boshan

In 2017,the “English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education” was revised and issued.In the part of “Evaluation Recommendations”,it is pointed out that primary school evaluation should be based on stimulating students’ learning interests.It is necessary to adopt a reasonable combination of oral,listening and written examinations to examine students’ basic understanding and expression abilities,with emphasis on students’ ability to do things in English.On this basis,in order to fully improve students’ oral ability and stimulate students’ interests in oral English learning,in May 2016,the English test reform of primary schools in Boshan was formally implemented.The English examination has changed from the original paper-and-pencil examination(listening part and written part)to the combination of “man-machine dialogue” oral examination and paper-and-pencil examination.Oral examination scores accounted for 20% and paper scores accounted for 70%.All pupils must take part in the oral test.The reform of oral test triggered a massive influence among test-designers,teachers,students and parents.What influence did the reform have on teachers’ teaching,students’ learning and test-designers’ designing is not sure till now.“Backwash” refers to the influence of language tests on language teaching and learning.In order to monitor and direct teaching,two conditions should be satisfied: one is the high-risk test that can trigger the reaction of educational and teaching personnel,such as educational administrators,teachers and students;the other is that the test design is scientific and reasonable,which can truly measure the effect of teaching and learning.Based on this definition,the study uses “backwash” to explore the impact of oral test on teaching and learning in Boshan District.In order to explore whether the oral test has a backwash effect on primary school English teaching and learning,and what the direction and extent of the washback effect is,this study is carried out based on “The Basic Model of Backwash” proposed by Bailey.In this study,three research questions are identified: 1.What is the backwash effect of oral test on teachers’ teaching?2.What is the backwash effect of oral test on students’ learning? 3.What is the backwash effect of oral test on test-designers’ designing?By combining qualitative and quantitative methods,this study investigated 3 test-designers,17 primary English teachers and 181 pupils and their parents.By means of questionnaires,this paper explores the direction and strength of the backwash effect of oral tests through surveys of test-designers,front-line teachers,students and their parents.By the way of interviews,the actual backwash effect performance of oral test can be reached through interviews with special subjects in three kinds of participants,and at the same time,mutual confirmation with the results of the questionnaire can be formed.By the method of class observation,the changes in the classroom before and after the oral test is observed,the specific classroom performance of teachers and students can be known,and as a result,the washback effect of oral test on teachers’ teaching attitude and behavior and students’ learning attitude and behavior can be obtained directly.SPSS and Microsoft Office Excel were used to analyze the results of the survey.It’s found that the oral test has a positive backwash effect on teachers’ teaching,students’ learning and test-designers’ designing,but the degree on different subjects is different.It has a great positive influence on students and test-designers,no matter on attitude,behavior or motivation.While for teachers’ teaching,there is only a strong positive effect on teaching attitude,the backwash effect on teachers’ teaching behavior and motivation is weak.Therefore,in order to give full play to the positive backwash effect on teaching and learning,the researchers put forward three suggestions:1)Teachers should pay more attention to the analysis of oral test contents to help students practice more effectively.In this way,students’ oral expression ability can be really improved.2)Besides the practice on English speaking,students should also improve the ability on computer operating to reduce the non-verbal influence.3)The test-designers can optimize the examination process to improve the operability of the test so as to better reflect students’ language ability.This study is a good attempt on the study of oral test.Through this study,the positive backwash effect on teaching and learning proves the necessity of oral test reform and affirms the guidance of oral test.It also finds out the problems existing in the implementation of oral test,and with the help of the corresponding solutions,the oral test will be better carried out.As this study aims at the oral test of primary school,which is involved less in the field of backwash,this study will be a good fill in the empirical study of backwash in primary school oral test.However,due to the limited scope of implementation of the test,it is only a regional attempt,and the uneven level of educational hardware support will affect the participants’ perception of oral test.In addition,influenced by the geographical location of the school,the views of teachers and students in very remote areas cannot be covered.Therefore,the representativeness and generalization of the research results have some limitations.