A Study On The Washback Effect Of PRETCO On Students' Practical English Learning

Language test is an important factor in language teaching and learning, and the former has a washback on the latter. Washback refers to impact that test exerts on language teaching and learning, and this impact may be positive or negative (Hughes 1989). In recent years, there are many studies on the washback, but they tend to focus on the washback of CET-4,CET-6 and so on, while the researches on washback of Practical English Test for Colleges (PRETCO) are far from sufficient, especially the empirical researches.PRETCO is a national standardized EFL test for the students in Higher Vocational Colleges (HVCs). It intends to test students'basic knowledge and language skills, and the ability to deal with the common business and carry out communication. As a large-scaled EFL test, PRETCO has popularized among the HVCs all over the country since it was implemented in 2002. The washback of PRETCO has been paid more and more attention to by scholars and teachers of Foreign Language Teaching.This paper aims for a research of PRETCO washback on the students'practical English learning in HVCs based on previous studies from home and abroad. It intends to explore the aspects of washback on students'practical English learning in HVCs, and the nature of the washback. Based on the findings, the author puts forward the approaches to enhance PRETCO positive washback on students'practical English learning in order to bring beneficial reference for promoting English teaching and learning in HVCs.Based on Alderson and Wall's washback Hypotheses and the status quo of teaching in China, this research adopts a descriptive research method, and takes interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations as its research instruments.220 students selected randomly and 8 English teachers from Qingdao Hotel Management College are involved in the research. After giving a description to the feedback, the paper analyzes the washback of the PRETCO on the students'practical English learning in HVCs.This research finds out that PRETCO exerts more positive washback than negative ones on practical English learning. It also shows that the test has certain influence on students' learning purpose, learning motivation, learning attitude, learning material and self-study etc. The PRETCO spoken English test has less impact on students because it has not been carried out popularly. According to the results, the author puts forward recommendations to foster positive washback that students can benefit from, and gets rid of the negative ones.