An Empirical Study Of The Washback Of CET-4 Listening In College English Listening Teaching And Learning

Washback, which can be positive or negative, generally refers to the influence of testing on teaching and learning. Washback is an important phenomenon in language education. In the past years, a lot of studies of washback effects of language testing have been carried out abroad (Alderson & Wall, 1993; Hughes, 1989, 1993; Bachman&palmer 1996; Alderson & Hamp-Lyons 1996, etc), especially high-stake testing, such as TOEFL and IELTS. These studies have deepened people's understanding of this phenomenon and promoted the reform and innovation in language testing and teaching.College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) is regarded as one of the largest standardized foreign language tests in China (Cheng Jianlin, 2000). Many researchers in our country have had discussions about College English teaching and testing, and put forward lots of proposals and methods to improve them, but few empirical studies have been conducted on the washback effects of CET-4, especially on the washback effects of CET-4 listening on college English listening teaching and learning (CELTL).So it is necessary and worthwhile to conduct empirical studies of high-stakes CET-4 listening test. Based on Alderson and Wall's Washback Hypotheses (1993), the present study is meant to find out CET-4 listening washback effects on CELTL, to promote the present college English listening teaching, and to improve listening proficiency of EFL learners.In this thesis, three kinds of instruments (questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations) were employed. The subjects in this study are college English teachers and 300 college English students from six colleges (Changsha Social Work College, Changsha Environmental Protection Vocational Technology College, Changsha South Vocational Technology College, Hunan Engineer Vocational Technology College, Changsha College, and Hunan Normal University). The present study is mainly focused on the following four aspects: 1)teachers' and students' perceptions of CET-4 listening, 2)the specific influence of CET-4 listening on CELTL, 3)the actual classroom practice corresponding to CET-4 listening, 4)teachers' and students' opinions of the CET-4 listening reform and format.Based on the findings of this empirical study, CET-4 listening has exerted both positive and negative washback on teaching and learning attitudes, objective, content, methods, material selection and time allotment. On the whole, negative washback effects have outweighed positive ones. Meanwhile, the negative influence will vary along with the time, test position and test use. CET-4 listening exerts more negative influence on the students in their second year of English listening learning than in their first year's study at college, as their primary concern in this period is to pass CET-4, rather than improving their language use ability. In this case, it has impacted the normal teaching, and to some degree led to testing-oriented phenomenon. Besides, we have also discussed the nature and mechanism of washback of CET-4, some factors inducing negative washback effects of CET-4 listening, and made some suggestions to enhance the positive washback effects.