An Empirical Study Of The Washback Effects Of Grammar Gap-filling Task In Nmet(Guangdong)on Senior English Teaching And Learning

This thesis aims to investigate the washback of grammar gap-filling task(GG/F task)in National Matriculation English Test(Guangdong)(NMETG).Its main purposes are to explore the attitudes held by senior high school teachers and students towards GG/F task which made its first appearance in the NMETG reform to replace the original multiple-choice task(M/C task)in 2007,and to make an inquiry into what kind of washback effects imposed by GG/F task on the teaching and learning materials,contents and methods of senior high school teachers and students in Guangdong Province.With Alderson and Wall’s Washback Hypothesis and Bailey’s basic model of washback being the theoretical framework,research methods combining questionnaires and interviews are adopted in the current study to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively.Two kinds of participants are involved: teacher participants who take part in the questionnaire surveys include 151 English teachers from various cities in Guangdong Province,among whom 15 experienced Senior III teachers are interviewed;student participants who take part in the questionnaire surveys include 110 Senior II and 107 Senior III students from a municipal key senior high school in Guangzhou,Guangdong Province,among whom 12 Senior III students are interviewed.To better explore the exact learning changes caused by GG/F task after its replacement of M/C task,106 Senior II and 100 Senior III students from a municipal key senior high school in Wuhan,Hubei Province are also surveyed by questionnaires for the washback effects of M/C task as a control group.Based on the data analyses,tentative answers are concluded to the research questions:(1)both teachers and students hold positive attitudes and show their welcome to this task and they also feel both motivated and stressed.Specifically,for teachers,impetus exceeds pressure and the majority of them affirm that GG/F task spurs them to reflect and improve their teaching;while for students,pressure slightly surpasses motivation owing to the overwhelmingly decisive role of NMETG on their future;(2)both positive and negative washback effects are exerted by GG/F task on senior high school teaching and learning in Guangdong Province.On the one hand,GG/F task imposes positive washback effects on the teaching and learning contents and methods among teachers and Senior III students who have been given systematic NMETG revisions especially specialized training of GG/F task,for it promotes them to pay more attention to textual cohesion and coherence as well as grammatical analysis and application in contexts,thereby effectively improving students’ comprehensive language application ability;on the other hand,G/GF task also exerts negative washback effects,which are reflected in the test-oriented materials and test-taking techniques adopted by teachers and students.On the whole,GG/F task imposes far more positive washback than negative washback on senior school English teaching and learning in Guangdong Province and plays a positive role in cultivating students’ ability to analyze and apply grammatical and linguistic knowledge in contexts.On the basis of the above findings,some suggestions are proposed to educational administrators and high school teachers and students to further boost the positive washback of GG/F task on senior high school English teaching and learning.