Examining Washback Of The Continuation Writing Task In The National Matriculation English Test

The Continuation Writing Task(CWT)asks participants to complete a passage with its ending deliberately removed.Recently,studies on the CWT have accumulated in huge amounts of literature.This results from both the amount of research on the xu-argument and researchers’ interest in the reform of the National Matriculation English Test(NMET)in more and more provinces.In the field of language testing,washback studies investigate the effects of a test on teaching and learning.Over the course of many years,numerous theoretical frameworks have been proposed.The current study aims to apply Green’s washback mechanism to analyze the effects of the Continuation Writing Task on English teaching and learning in high schools.This study answers the following questions: 1)how do teachers and students perceive the construct of the CWT? 2)how does the CWT influence teaching and learning? Research activities were conducted in both Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces.Firstly,teachers and students were observed in classrooms and the observation notes were taken.Secondly,teachers and students were interviewed and their responses were recorded.Thirdly,based on previous literature and the analyses of the classroom observation data and the interview data,the questionnaires were designed,validated,distributed,and returned.Finally,the questionnaires were analyzed through descriptive statistical procedures,normal distribution tests,and Mann-Whitney U tests.The results reveal that,teachers and students from both provinces believe that reading ability,logical thinking ability,and written expression ability belong to the skills required by the CWT,and that using six elements of narratives to understand the source text,analyzing the logic in story development,and using the expressions students learned belong to the micro-skills required by the CWT.When rating students’ performances of the CWT,teachers believed that using expressions students have learned,the rationality of the plots,and the coherence were considered.What’s more,the materials used in the teaching and learning of English writing covered textbooks and exercise books of beautiful writing.Compared with teachers from the non-CWT province,teachers from the CWT province display a deeper understanding of the construct of the CWT.In their teaching activities,teachers not only emphasize the memorization of more expressions,but also develop students’ reading skills and logical thinking ability through activities such as analyzing the source text,listing and discussing the possible plots.Accordingly,in students’ learning activities,they are pushed to memorize more expressions.