A Study On The Washback Effect Of The NMET On Senior Grade One English Teaching And Learning

The washback effect of the language testing is a new research field of applied linguistics.It refers to the effect of tests on teaching (Wall1997). It can be either positive or negative.Positive effect can promote the development of teaching; while negative effect may inhibit oreven mislead teaching. In recent years, scholars abroad have done a lot of theoretical andempirical researches on washback effect, the findings of which not only enrich the relatedtheory of testing, but also greatly contribute to the development of English teaching. However,in China, both the theoretical and empirical researches on the washback effect in the field oflanguage testing are relatively few and mainly concentrate on some large-scale and high-stakeexaminations. In respect to the washback effect of NMET (National Matriculation of EnglishTest), researchers are only concerned about its impact on senior grade three English teachingand learning but pay little attention to its impact on senior grade one English teaching andlearning. That’s exactly where the creativity of the thesis lays.On the basis of the research models adopted by domestic and foreign scholars, togetherwith the specific teaching practice of China and the detailed analysis of NMET (Shandong2007-2012), this thesis aims at answering the following questions: whether the NMET(Shandong) imposes washback effect on the English teaching and learning in senior high schooland to what extent; how to maximize the positive impacts while at the same time reducenegative ones; how to reform and promote the current English teaching in senior high schoolaccording to the opinions and suggestions recommended by students and teachers on the NMET.Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, this thesis collects data throughquestionnaire, classroom observation and interview. The subjects are26English teachers and480students from Jinxiang NO.1Senior High School and NO.2Senior High School.Results of data analysis show that NMET has exerted huge washback effect (bothpositive and negative) on senior grade one English teaching and learning, which are as follows:Firstly, NMET promotes the implementation of the teaching syllabus and to some degreestimulates teachers’ teaching enthusiasm and students’ learning motivation. Secondly, NMET is misused as a tool to evaluate schools, teachers and students, whichbrings the unnecessary competition pressure on them. What’s worse, the main purpose ofEnglish teaching and learning in senior high school is to obtain high marks in NMET.Thirdly, the attitudes and perceptions of teachers and students towards NMET formatsand content are basically consistent. They believe that the structure of the NMET paper isgenerally reasonable and it can reflect students’ actual English proficiency. They also suggestthat the oral English test should be included so as to attach great importance to spoken Englishpractice and training which will eventually improve students’ communicative competence inEnglish. Meanwhile, they recommend that the NMET content and formats should be and mustbe reformed with proper decrease of objective test items and corresponding increase ofsubjective test items.Fourthly, at the present time, though Shandong Province starts to implement the “latestSenior English Curriculum Standards”, the teaching methods of the schools investigated areessentially unchanged. What’s worse, students’ test scores are still considered as the maincriteria for the evaluation of teachers.According to the above results, this paper puts forward feasible opinions and suggestionson how to better highlight NMET’s positive washback effect and simultaneously reduce thenegative one.