An Empirical Study Of CET Washback On Students' Five Basic Skills

Washback refers to the influence of a test on teaching and learning. The College English Test (CET) is a large-scale standardized test. Under the leadership of the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, CET is designed and developed by the National College English Testing Committee (NCETC), and is administrated jointly by the NCETC and the Examination Centre of the Ministry of Education,aiming to accurately measure college students'ability to use English in a well-rounded way, and to promote the implementation of College English Curriculum Requirements (Requirements). Since 2005, CET has taken significant innovative measures, mainly including test content and test format and the innovation has been implemented nationwide in 2007. As we known English learning including language knowledge and language skills. Moreover, students are the test takers and the direct stakeholders. Thus, the investigation of washback on students' five basic skills is of great importance.This study explores the synchronic and diachronic washback of CET from students'perspective and employs questionnaire survey as the major instrument, supplemented by interview. The study includes two parts: Part One is a synchronic study based on the 130 questionnaire surveys for CET-4 and 130 questionnaire surveys for CET-6 of the four sample schools in 2010; Part Two is a diachronic study based on the 145 questionnaire surveys for CET-4 and 137 questionnaire surveys for CET-6 in one of the sample schools from 2008 to 2010. Through these two parts, the present study aiming to address: 1) What is the washback of the innovated CET on students'five basic skills? 2) Does CET washback on students'five basic skills change over time?The synchronic and diachronic studies have found much evidence indicating the positive washback on students'five basic skills of CET outweighs the negative one. The major findings are briefly summarized as follows:From a synchronic perspective, as for the washback of the innovated CET, most of the students applaud most of the innovative measures related to the five basic skills. They perceive that most innovative measures will bring more positive washback than negative one on their five basic skills. CET has promoted the implementation of the Requirements in CE learning: students'coverage of textbook units for intensive reading turns out to be relatively satisfactory; learning activities related to five basic skills are often carried out in class. Students noticed the importance of listening and speaking. Nevertheless, students'coverage of listening textbook units and the decreasing coverage of textbook units in Band 4 indicates the negative influence on students'learning; students time allotment to the five basic skills also inflects the negative washback of CET. Though students noticed the importance of enhancing their speaking, they still spent most of their learning time on reading and listening, which have higher proportion in CET. All of these indicate that there's a negative washback of CET on the five basic skills. Besides, there are many factors affecting students'CE learning, and CET is just one among them.From a synchronic perspective, the CET washback is positive-oriented and it may change over time. In students'view, CET is generally considered to promote more positive washback than negative one from 2008 to 2010. As time goes by, students'increasing investment in listening and speaking after innovation indicates the positive washback of CET.In addition to the major findings above, the present study offers some suggestions to CET innovation, CE teachers, and CE learners.