A Study Of The Backwash Effect Of Communicative Language Testing On English Teaching In Senior High Schools

With the development of economy and society, the education in senior highschool is gaining its proper status in China. In senior high schools, English is one ofthe important subjects, and in the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE),English is also an important part. Nowadays, English teaching is centered with thedevelopment of students’ ability to use English in real context in senior high schools.According to the New English Curriculum Standard，The purpose of teaching Englishis to improve the students’ integrated ability to use English, especially the ability touse English in communication, and the teaching method has also changed from thetraditional teacher-centered approach to student-centered approach. The latter one ismore communicative.Testing is an important constituent in the teaching process. Tests can examine theeffects of the teaching and evaluates the level of students through the teaching.Testing not only gives teaching a proper standard but also monitors the teachingprocess. Meanwhile, the changes of teaching methods can stimulate thetransformation of the testing methods. There in an Interaction between testing andteaching.So, nowadays in senior schools, the new teaching approach needs new ways tobe evaluated, which can substitute the conventional tests. Testing can affect teaching,and the effect is called backwash. Language test backwash is said to be either positiveor negative. If a testing procedure can encourage teacher to give some good practicein teaching, the positive backwash is effective. For example, if we use listening in afinal examination, it can encourage the teachers to practice listening comprehensionwith the students during the teaching procedure. Apparently, the testing in senior highschools has a less positive backwash. So, English teaching in senior high school needsmore helpful testing methods to give it a more positive backwash. Then,Communicative Language Testing (CLT) is required.The thesis is concerned with the CLT. The author talks about the theory, thefeatures, the development and the application of CLT. Both quantitative andqualitative study is used in the research. In order to collect the information about thestatus quo of CLT in senior high schools, the author uses a questionnaire survey on theteachers and students. The following experiments in two groups can show that the CLT gives a positive backwash to English teaching.At the end of thesis, some suggestions of the way concerning with application ofCLT better in senor high school are provided: Teachers should assign authentic,communicative test tasks to help the students improve their communicative ability.Teachers should pay more attention to testing and its backwash effect to teachingapproach. Teachers in senior high school should value the CLT and use as many asCLT in the classroom diagnostic test or progress test as the guidance for the teachingand learning. Furthermore, the teachers and educators should develop the CLT andmake it more suitable to apply in a large-scale test as NCEE.This whole thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is an introduction,which introduces the present situation of English teaching and testing in senior highschools briefly. Chapter Two is about the theoretical basis of communicative languagetesting. It describes Hymes, Canale and Swain’s language competence theories andBachman’s framework of communicative language ability. Chapter Three keeps aneye on the distinctive characteristics of communicative language testing. Chapter Fouris the research part. It includes a questionnaire survey and an experimental study.Chapter Five analyzes the data and indicates the research results. Chapter Six is theconclusion. Suggestions are given in this part.