Research On The Washback Effect Of Nmet Writing Scoring Criterion On High School English Writing Teaching

Washback refers to the impact and effect on teaching and learning from language tests.National Matriculation English Test(NMET),as kind of large-scale and high-stake foreign language examination in China,always plays an important role in instructing English teaching.And English writing is an important part in NMET.As a kind of direct and subjective test,the writing scoring is based on the course syllabus and NMET syllabus.It well explains what writing competence consists of in the NMET syllable.So,the scoring scale of writing in NMET can instruct the writing teaching well in high school and has profound washback on writing teaching.This paper aims to analyze 3 questions:1)How do the teachers think about the scoring scale of writing in NMET? 2)Do teachers value the five writing skills in teaching?(What's the differences between teachers in different grades? What's the differences between writing lessons of different genres?)3)Do teachers value the five writing skills when marking the writing assignments?(What's the differences between teachers in different grades? What's the differences between writing lessons of different genres?)Based on 15 hypothesis theory of washback from Wall& Alderson,the researcher chooses the teachers in high school as subjects.And the researcher resorts to questionnaire,interview,classroom observation and text analysis to find out the answers.The result shows that the scoring scale of writing in NMET has great washback effect on writing teaching in some detailed aspects: 1)Most of the teachers holds on positive attitude toward the scoring rules and believes that it can instruct writing teaching well;2)The focal points in writing lessons are mainly on the skills mentioned in the scoring rules,especially the usage of language,the organization and the content;3)The focal point is mainly on the usage of language when the teachers are marking writing assignments;4)The scoring scale of writing in NMET has different washback effect on writing lessons of different genres;5)The scoring scale of writing in NMET has stronger washback on the senior grades.The paper also gives some advice on how to instruct English writing well.And it suggests teachers to teach writing and mark writing assignments based on the NMET writing scoring rules.What's the most important is that the teachers should also obey the syllabus to improve the communicative competence,not just improve the test skills.