A Comparative Study On The Listening Subtests Of CET-4, TOEFL And IELTS

TOEFL and IELTS rank the best known English tests in the current world, and are noticeable for their distinctive features, with TOEFL the representation of traditional and structural test, and IELTS, a specimen of the communicative test. On the other hand, CET-4, a widely used English test in China has already exerted great influence on non-English major students in China's colleges. It is estimated that more than 2,000,000 people take this test every year, and the test result plays a decisive role in students'further study, or even in their employment when they enter society.Despite the great popularity of CET-4 among the Chinese students, little evidence is presented to prove its effectiveness in testing students'communicative ability, especially the ability to listen and speak. Due to the limitation of space and energy, here in this study, only the listening subtest of CET-4 is focused, and the purpose of this study is to find out with some evidence the washback effects of the listening subtest of CET-4 on language learners by (1) comparing students'performance in the listening subtest of CET-4 with that of some world-famous high-stake tests—TOEFL and IELTS; (2) analyzing the actual needs of students on listening activities; and (3) checking students'actual behavior in listening activities, in the hope of finding out the specific ways to improve the listening subtest of CET-4.As far as I am concerned, this present study is of paramount empirical significance. The reasons are listed as follows. Firstly, most studies overseas focus their attention on the more detailed or technical part, such as defining the construct of listening tests, the operationalisation of the construct, including text characteristics, accents, visual aids, etc. Few researchers take all these matters into consideration and study the washback effects of listening tests as a whole. Second, the studies conducted domestically mainly concern with how to improve effective teaching and design testwiseness strategies. Though some studies take washback effects seriously, the focus is not those of the listening part, but of the whole test. Besides, the washback effects on language teaching and teaching materials dominate most of the studies, while those on learners are greatly neglected. Therefore, studies on the...