The Washback Effects Of Reformed CET4in College English Teaching And Learning

Washback refers to the effects tests have on teaching and learning. Washback is animportant phenomenon in language testing. The College English Test Band4(CET4) is anational examination presided over by the national Ministry of Higher Education. The maintarget test takers of CET4are the university undergraduate and graduate students who havefinished the curriculum of the4-level of English according to the education outline in theuniversity. CET4is not only a kind of test for the learning capacity of the students, but also anexamination of the teachers for their teaching fruits. In the comprehensive evaluation of theuniversity the passing rate of the College English Test Band4also plays a very important role,which leads most of the universities to devote to passing this vital test.CET4was reformed in December,2006. The reformed CET4is composed of Writing,Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning), Listening Comprehension, ReadingComprehension (Reading in Depth), Cloze and Translation. The total marks of the CollegeEnglish Test Band4after the innovation are710. Based on this innovation，this thesis is apreliminary investigation in which the author adopts the domestic and foreign researchesespecially researcher methods and models so as to find out the aspects of college Englishteaching and learning influenced by reformed CET4since2006, and the nature of theinfluence (or washback). It also attempts to find the strategies to improve positive washbackof reformed CET4so as to provide references to the college English teaching and learning.The subjects of the study are the college English teachers and the undergraduates of2007inthe economic management college in a Liaoning technological university. The methodologicalmethods employed in the investigation are two questionnaires, classroom observations andinterviews. These three methods are widely applied by many researchers in washback studiesabroad.。The study finds out that reformed CET4exerts influence on many aspects of collegeEnglish teaching and learning, and the nature of the effect is both positive and negative. Themajority of the college English teachers and students consider that reformed CET4has morepositive washback than negative ones on their college English teaching and learning.However, college English teachers and students hold completely different viewpoints onCET4preparation courses. Many students hold the idea that passing CET4is their practical and instrumental motive for learning English so they have complicated feelings toward CET4.On the basis of these results and findings, the author analyzes the main factors resulting innegative washback of reformed CET4and proposes some useful strategies for promotingpositive washback effect and decrease the negative washback effect. This provides a valuablereference to college English teaching and learning. In the end, the author points out the needfor further research in this field.