A Critical Study On Washback Effect Of Nmet-From The Perspective Of Critical Language Testing

The notion of Critical Language Testing (CLT), firstly put forward by Shohamy (2001), assumes that the act of language testing is not neutral; rather, it is always political. CLT views language testing as an issue deeply rooted in educational, social, political and cultural context, consequently, the notion of "just a test" is impossibility, just as Spolsky (1995:1) notes that "testing has been exploited also as a method of control and power-as a way to select, to motivate, to punish"Washback, which plays a crucial role in language testing, is a term now commonly used in applied linguistics and refers to the influence of testing on test stakeholders. National Matriculation English Test (NMET), an important component of National Matriculation Tests (NMT), is one of the largest and most influential language tests in China. The content of the test can determine the content of teaching and learning in high school to a great extent. So, the NMET exerts strong washback effect on high school teaching and learning.By collecting data through questionnaires and interviews, with165students,12teachers and4school leaders from three high school as participants, the current study attempts to explore the washback effect on students, teachers and schools and to analyze the reasons from the Chinese NMET system and deeper social and political reasons from the perspective of CLT, hoping that it would provide some reference to the upcoming NMT reform and how to hinder the negative washback and promote the beneficial washback of NMET.The research results show that NMET brings about positive effect, but the negative washback also can not be neglected, the most reported negative washback effects of NMET are teaching to the test, intense pressure and anxiety on students and teachers.There are some distinct weaknesses in NMET, such as lack of oral subtest and the over-employment of multiple-choice which direct the teaching to the focus of language knowledge and ignorance of language use. Under the theoretical framework of CLT, this study also explores the deeper social and political reasons of the negative washback effect of NMET. Some social factors, such as the diploma-oriented social value, inadequate social evaluation system and uneven distribution of resources, can influence the nature of the washback. At the political level, the misuse of the test score as a tool to evaluate schools and teachers, unfairness in educational policies and corruption in the procedure of admission also pile pressure on students, teacher and even education sectors and lead to the negative washback.To hinder the negative washback effect of NMET, social measures, political measures and constructional measures to improve NMET are suggested in this study.