Validity Analysis Of English Testing In Senior Middle School Under New English Curriculum Standard

English teaching in primary schools and high schools in China are guided by new curriculum standards, New English Curriculum Standards, presently. And a whole set of matters, such as textbook, tests, or even the dominant teaching methods are under reform accordingly. The reform has sparked a heated discussion among specialists, teachers, students, parents, and many other people related to the education system. A lot of researches are carried out and different aspects of the new standards are discussed. However, there are few researches on the English test under the New Curriculum Standard.According to the New English Curriculum Standard, The fundamental aim of the English course is to develop students'comprehensive language competence. This aim is broken down into five general objectives. It also provides specific curricular content standards on language skills, language knowledge, attitudes to learning, learning strategies and cultural awareness. All of these offer a concrete basis for the implementation of the English teaching and testing in senior middle schools.In senior middle schools, achievement tests have been emphasized for a long time by students, teachers, parents and the public, although they are not so important as the National Matriculation English Test (hereinafter, NMET) to determine one's fortune. Therefore, it is necessary to examine whether those English tests have taken up the latest development of language teaching and testing theories, or whether they are in line with the requirements of the New Curriculum Standard to measure the students' comprehensive competence. It is for the above reasons that this thesis discusses the current situation of English tests in senior middle schools after the curriculum reform with reference to the New Curriculum Standard. In the process of investigation, some previous studies and related language testing theories are taken into consideration as well.The main purpose of thesis is to discuss the validity of English test papers of senior middle schools, hoping to find out whether those test papers have meet the requirements of the New Curriculum Standard to measure the students' comprehensive competence. To meet this goal, three specific questions are proposed:1) what is the current situation of test papers under the New Curriculum Standard? Item types, number of types and so on.2) Is there any difference between those test papers of different schools? If yes, what are they? And what do those differences mean? Are they more suited to the requirements that are specified in the New Curriculum Standard? 3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of those test papers?In view of these issues, the author of this thesis carries out an investigation into the English testing of senior middle schools in Nanchong, Sichuan province. In order to ensure the representativeness, sample test papers are the mid-term test papers, and the three middle schools are at three different levels, namely, the national level demonstrative high school, the city-level demonstrative high school and the provincial demonstrative middle school, because most senior middle schools in China are ranked in these three different levels. They are Nanchong senior middle school, Nanchong No.1 middle school and Li Du middle school respectively. In addition, the author has a brief interview with the English teachers about the design of test papers.Based on the study, some major findings can be summarized as follow. First, all the sample test papers are oriented to NMET, including the item types, the item numbers, etc. Second, after careful comparison of these three test papers, we find that they have their own merits and demerits. However, test papers of Nanchong senior middle school is more suited to the requirements of New Curriculum Standard. Third, these three test papers stress much on measuring language knowledge, other aspect of comprehensive language competence like attitudes to learning, cultural awareness are comparatively less. Finally, these test papers are not developed in a systematic way, or even they are just developed by piecing up other papers on the internet, this is undoubtedly harmful to their reliability and validity.In order to solve these problems, the author of this thesis analyzes the main reasons, that is, the way of English test development is still guided by the college entrance examination and English teachers do not have sufficient knowledge of language testing. In the end, the author proposes some suggestions for improvement. First, the training of English teachers should be enforced so that their ability to develop test of high validity can be improved. Second, English teachers can be organized as a team specialized in language testing, so that the research and practice of English testing can be promoted. Third, much more emphasis shall be given to formative assessment, and more means of measurement can be employed in English assessment, so testing will not be the only way to measure students'English competence.