University-Based Communicative English Test

Testing and Teaching are interrelated. As an important component and partner of language teaching, language testing is expected to exert beneficial effects (or backwash) on language teaching. When a language test cannot promote the development of good language teaching, or even hinders the realization of teaching objectives, either it should get thoroughly out of the way, or improvement should be made till its negative influence on language teaching reaches the minimum. Usually, the latter is preferred, particularly when the test is authoritative.In China, there is an apparent tendency that the college English testing, which bears the characteristics of the national College English Test (CET 4/6), is no longer helpful to college English teaching (referring to the teaching of English to non-English majors at universities). Established and administered for 19 years, the CET is deemed as the sole authoritative measure of the college students' language proficiency. Due to its authority and nationwide scale, the CET is exerting powerful influence on the English tests adopted on campus, with its impact extending unavoidably to the college English teaching. In its early stage when priority was given to the students' reading ability in the target language, it did help prosperity of the college English teaching and learning.However, with the overwhelming trend in language teaching—emphasis on fostering students' ability to use English in communication, is the CET an effective measure of, with its format characteristic of the structuralist approach, the test takers' communicative language ability?Based on the theory of language testing, particularly that of communicative language testing, the thesis analyses the CET from the perspective of its validity, reliability and its backwash (negative) on the college English teaching. Related investigations (questionnaire on the CET made in Chongqing Normal University) are also conducted to see if the CET is really a "scientific and effective", as the proponents claim, measure of the students' communicative competence. The findings show that the test results are inadequate to reflect the testees' real communicative language ability. And its negative backwash on English teaching and learning is hindering the communicative competence development in the students.In view of the new requirement in the college English teaching (develop students' ability to use English in an all-round way, especially in listening and speaking) and the inadequacies in the CET, it is proposed that communicative English tests be constructed and applied in each university or college. As such a test is established on the basis of specific conditions of each school, it could meet the demands of English teaching varying from college to college. And since it is communicative competence-oriented, it aims to convey a message to both the test users and the test takers that the truth of language is in its use. The university-based communicative English test could be used as a supplement to the CET. As an important component of college English assessment system, this test can serve for the formative evaluation of the students' language proficiency, whereas the CET (for certain reasons impossible to get out of the way) works as instrument of the summative evaluation.This thesis consists of five chapters:Chapter One introduces the background of the thesis. Some previous studies on the CET are given to show the necessity of the study. Besides, the purpose of the study and its significance are also presented in this part.Chapter Two traces the historical development of language testing, with an emphasis on the studies of the communicative competence theory which strongly backs the development and use of communicative language test. The classification of the language...