Washback Of The Oral English Test Of The Senior High School Entrance Examination On Junior High School English Classroom Teaching And Learning: An Empirical Study

Washback is a new research field of language testing and its main purpose is to study the impact of test in the aspect of teaching.In China,many achievements have been made in the study of washback,but these studies tend to be partial.At present,the empirical studies on Senior High School Entrance Examinations,especially on the oral English test of Senior High School Entrance Examinations,are rare in China.Results show that the washback of high-stakes tests have had both positive and negative impact on EFL teaching practices and teachers.We live in a testing country and our education system is awash with various tests.Due to the exam-oriented education and the special function of tests,people take it for granted that tests will have effect on teaching,which is lack of in-depth investigation and needs to be examined empirically.The present study attempts to explore the following three questions:(1)Is the washback of the oral English test of the Senior High School Entrance Examination positive or negative?(2)What is the washback that the oral English test of the Senior High School Entrance Examination has on teachers' teaching contents and teaching methods?(3)What is the washback that the oral English test of the SeniorHigh School Entrance Examination has on students' learning contents and learning methods?In the process of the study,a number of research methods,such as questionnaire survey,classroom observation and interview,have been adopted with data collected from 512 students,17 teachers from the junior secondary schools in Jiangbei Town of Changsha County.The results of this study show that the Oral English Test of Senior High School Entrance Examinations has brought about positive washback on Junior High School English classroom teaching and learning.The positive washback manifests itself as follows: it guides teachers to focus more on developing students' language competence and it has raised teachers' awareness of developing students' oral skills in class.The data shows pair work and group discussion are employed more frequently than before.Teachers will consciously speak English in their classroom teaching,and are more willing to take the student-centered teaching approaches,to let the students have more English input and output.Due to the oral test,students tend to choose the test-related materials which they read,ask and answer and paraphrase when they practice their oral English and prepare for the test.However,the study also finds that there is still a gap between teachers' teaching and the requirements of the new curriculum standards.Some teachers still follow the traditional teaching concept.They merely teach linguistic knowledge,ignore students' oralEnglish,and lack a sound oral English evaluation system.Besides,the contents and forms of the oral test are really limited,which cannot achieve the expected effect.Based upon these findings,some suggestions are being put forward on how to promote the positive effect of washback and hinder the negative one,such as fully understanding and using the guiding role of the oral test,improving the oral testing forms,giving teachers more opportunities to promote their professional development and improving the oral English evaluation system,etc.Lastly,this study points out its limitations and its need for further empirical research.