An Investigation On The Backwash Effect Of Reading Comprehension Test In NMET On The Cultural Awareness Cultivation Of Senior High School Students

The English curriculum has a dual nature of instrumentality and humanity,and in terms of its humanity,English courses undertake the tasks to improve the students' comprehensive cultural literacy.Among the tasks,to cultivate the students' cultural awareness is one of the most important task.One of the aims of English courses is to cultivate the students' cultural awareness including cultural knowledge,cultural understanding,and cross-cultural communication consciousness and abilities.For the senior high school students,how much they grasp the English curriculum is often checked with the form of NMET,an abbreviation of the National Matriculation English Test,where the senior high school students' cultural awareness is usually examined in the reading comprehension test in NMET.Based on many researches done by a lot of researchers and experts about the backwash effect of the language tests,in this thesis,the author conducted a survey on 323 students and 28 English teachers from two schools.One is a senior high school in central urban area of Ganzhou City and the other one is a senior high school of Shangyou County.By using the questionnaires and interviews,the author did a study on the three questions:1.Does the reading comprehension test in NMET have backwash effect on the senior high school students' cultural awareness cultivation;If the backwash effect exist,are they positive backwash effect or negative backwash effect? 2.What aspects are the backwash effect embodied in? 3.Are the backwash effect in the Senior High School in the central urban area of Ganzhou City different from that in the Senior High School in Shangyou County?After three steps including conducting the preliminary questionnaire survey,implementing the formal questionnaire survey and having interviews to the teachers and students in the two schools,the data collection and analysis were made and then the conclusions were drawn as follow.1.The reading comprehension test in NMET has backwash effect on the cultural awareness cultivation of the senior high school students.2.The reading comprehension test in NMET has both positive backwash effect andnegative backwash effect on the cultural awareness cultivation of the senior high school students.3.In terms of the backwash effect on the teachers to cultivate the students' cultural awareness,they were embodied in five aspects: backwash effect on the teachers' purposes of cultivating the students' cultural awareness,teachers' approaches of cultivating the students' cultural awareness,teachers' attitude towards cultivating the students' cultural awareness,materials the teachers used to cultivate the students' cultural awareness and teachers' holistic view on the backwash effect of the reading comprehension test in NMET.As to the backwash effect on the students to develop their own cultural awareness,they were also embodied in five aspects: backwash effect on the students' cultural knowledge,students' cultural understanding,students' cross-cultural awareness,students' cross-cultural competence and students' holistic view on the backwash effect of the reading comprehension test in NMET.4.The backwash effect that the reading comprehension test in NMET has on the students' cultural awareness cultivation in the senior high school in central urban area of Ganzhou City were different from that in the senior high school of Shangyou County.The reasons for the differences included the software and hardware condition differences in the two schools and some family related-factors.In the end,the author analyzed some possible factors influencing the backwash effect that the reading comprehension test in NMET had on the students' cultural awareness cultivation and accordingly put forward some practical suggestions and ways to enhance the positive backwash effect and weaken the negative effects from 4 aspects,such as for school to organize teachers to carry out cultural accomplishment training,for teachers to change teaching idea,optimize models of English teaching,improve teaching method,perfect evaluation method,and improve classroom efficiency,for parents,should change their old concept and for students to form good habits of being diligent in reading,being good at observation,and being happy to experience.