A Study On Washback Effects Of PRETCO-B On Higher Vocational English Teaching And Learning In Fujian

The new round of curriculum reform for the public English teaching in higher vocational colleges which highlights the practicality of the teaching content and aims to cultivate students to use language to do things is career-oriented and combined with the professional courses under the guidance of practicality.Practical English Test for Colleges(PRETCO)is a standardized English proficiency test designed to evaluate the college students' English level on vocational college.According to the Basic Requirements,PRETCO is sorted into Level A and Level B.In additions,Level B is less difficult than Level A.The majority of vocational colleges in Fujian adopts to PRETCO-B as a scale to evaluate students' English level.Therefore,this paper aims to analyze the positive washback effects of PRETCO-B on the public English teaching in the higher vocational colleges in Fujian Province.Based on Alderson & Wall's Washback Hypotheses and Bailey's Basic Model of Washback with the methods of questionnaire and interview.The subjects of the survey are 11 English teachers and 320 non-English major students from seven higher vocational colleges of Fujian,aims to investigate the following questions:(1)What's the washback effect of PRETCO-B on higher vocational students' learning?(2)What's the washback effect of PRETCO-B on higher vocational teachers' teaching?(3)What's the washback effect of PRETCO-B on the reform of vocational English teaching mode?The result shows that:(1)The washback effects of PRETCO-B on higher vocational learning are mainly reflected in the learning content,methods,motivation,etc..(2)The washback effects of PRETCO-B on higher vocational teaching are mainly reflected in the teaching content,methods,motivation,etc..(3)The positive washback effects of PRETCO-B on the reform of vocational English teaching mode are higher than the negative ones.Based on the above research results,the study puts forward some available suggestionson the positive washback effects of PRETCO-B from the aspects of teachers' teaching,students' learning,managers' guidance and PRETCO-B itself.