An Analytical Study Of Problems With CET-4 From The Perspective Of Washback Effect

It is generally accepted by professionals involved in teaching that tests considerably influence the teaching and learning, which is defined as"washback"in the educational and linguistic studies. Such effect has been especially conspicuous in China, where testing has been playing a part enormously larger than elsewhere. Washback effect can be classified as positive washback and negative washback. Negative washback refers to the harmful or undesirable influences or functions of testing on teaching and learning. College English Test Band4 (hereafter CET-4 in short), as a large-scale standardized national test held in China, has gone through reforms several times since its inception in 1987 and has been widely acknowledged and highly regarded. However, as every large-scale standardized test plays a bi-directional role, CET-4, while conducting a great positive washback function, does bring along some other effect which is negative in nature.Based on theoretical convictions on washback effect, the present thesis conducts a series of analyses on the information, including data and facts collected through questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations, and comes up with some significant conclusions. This thesis consists of five chapters. In the first chapter the context in which the study is carried out and the significance of the study are introduced. Chapter Two reviews the definition, working mechanism, classification of washback and the studies of washback conducted home and abroad. The third chapter introduces the methods of the study including document analysis, interview, questionnaire and classroom observation, data collecting procedure and the results of the present study. Based on the results, the fourth chapter analyzes the data and probes into the problems causing the negative washback effect and in the fifth chapter, the author puts forward some suggestions addressing these problems. And the last chapter concludes the whole thesis.The results of the studies indicate although CET-4 has made great progress through reforms, it still play certain noticeable negative washback effect at both macro and micro levels. Macroscopically, the phenomena of overemphasis on the results of CET-4 and teaching and learning to test bring about a series of problems. Microscopically, the limitation of CET-4 paper constrains college English teaching and learning practice and fails to really help students improve their real communicative competence. Based on the analysis of CET-4's negative washback effect, the thesis points out the following problems in CET-4: (1) limitation of CET-4 reform; (2) rigidity and limitation of CET-4 test paper; (3) over-simplicity of CET-4's appraisal function; (4) unpopularity of CET-SET. Addressing these problems, the thesis puts forward some suggestions and strategies of further improving CET-4, which includes enhancing the CET-4 reform as a whole through establishing a scientific and objective English education system, further improving and reforming CET-4 paper design, popularizing CET-SET and optimizing the appraisal function of CET-4.