An Empirical Study On Washback Of CET4Writing To First-and Second-Year College English Teaching And Learning

Washback refers to the effect of testing on teaching and learning. As one of the most important criteria in language testing, washback has been increasingly gained more and more attention in recent years. The linguists Alderson and Wall first put forward the hypothesis and theories that related to washback, which laid the foundation for the subsequent empirical researches. Hughes put forward the trichotomy of "Participants-Processes-Products" based on the previous model; from another new perspective Prodromou studied the effect of washback and delivered two ways of how a testing exerts its washback on teaching and learning, that is "Overt washback" and "Cover washback".The extent of washback effect is proportional to the importance of a testing, especially some importance international and domestic tests.CET-4, as a national most important English test for the non-English college students in their fundamental stage, has relative higher reliability and validity. The four basic English skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing are the main testing content in CET-4and among them writing is to test the comprehensive proficiency of a learner, which accounts for15percent of the whole test. In the past few years the researches on the washback of CET-4has eventually increased in number and variety, involving listening, speaking, reading and writing while among which listening and writing researches are more than the other two, at the same time, the studies on writing mostly focus on "Participants" and " Process", only a few of them on "Products".This paper is intended to explore the first-and second-year college English writing teaching and learning of non-English majors in Yangtze University, in the study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches is adopted, the collection of data resorted to three research methods:questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation. The investigation involves20college English teachers and200undergraduates. Three main findings arise from the results reported in the investigation through SPSS as follows:1. CET4writing has positive washback to both the first-and second-year teaching motivations and the degree of first-year is deeper than second-year;2. The washback to teaching and learning materials selection, teaching and learning contents, methods, first-year teachers and students, the first-year’s is positive while the second-year students’is negative, the teaching and learning scope is affected obviously negatively.3. The washback to teaching and learning products is positive, but not evident.Based on the findings of the empirical study, some strategies are put forward for promoting positive learning both for teachers and students in hoping of contribute to an in-depth understanding of CET-4writing and advance the fist-and second-year college English writing teaching and learning, meanwhile, the present research may contribute to the research in other aspects.