The Analysis Of Content Validity Of English Testing Of Senior Middle School Under The New Criteria

The economical globalization and the advent of knowledge economy and information age have resulted in the huge changes in both the national and the international situation. The implementation of Education for Quality reflects the social progress and demands of the age. With the development of science and technology, the curricular of the elementary education of the whole world are facing a revolution ,which aims at fostering physically and mentally healthy human beings. Under such international circumstances, China conducted the reform of the curricular of the elementary education.In July, 2001, the English Curricular Criteria for Full-time Compulsory Education and Common Senior Middle School was issued in the form of experimental sketch, which was a vital step of our English elementary education. According to the planning of National Ministry of Education, it has been experimented in 38 experimental areas in 27 provinces and municipalities since the autumn of 2001,which indicated the English elementary education of China is approaching the international community.However, the relative lagging of China in terms of her concept and system of English education, the content of both education and testing together with their methods and means has been severely affecting and restricting the all-round development of the students, so they can no longer meet the practical needs of improving the qualities of the whole nation and meet the challenge of the new age. There might be various reasons and one is the traditional language testing, both in theory and practice, violates the scientific laws and fails to meet the practical needs.This thesis gives a brief review of the historical development of language testing, the categories of testing ,mainly including descriptions of each kind of testing. The thesis goes further into its analysis of comparison between 4 testing papers formulated by 4 teachers from 4 senior middle schools in Qianjiang City ofsHubei province, which emphasizes on the content validity according to the New Criteria. Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of a series of statistics, it comes to its conclusion of the present situation of the local English Testing :0wing to the traditional view of the English testing and the direction of the college entrance examination, the testing papers are not drawn up according to the principles; The language viewpoint of the local teachers still needs improving; And there is a certain distance from the new curricular criteria in the terms of the contents.This thesis puts forward some constructive suggestions in the end: Strengthen the training of the English teachers and establish the English testing group and the storehouse of English test papers. The author hopes the analysis can act as a reference to the research on English testing in both Qianjiang City and the other areas.