On The Effect Of Testing Frequency Upon English Teaching In Junior High School

English testing is indispensable with English teaching and learning. They are so closely interrelated that one cannot do without the other. English testing plays a very important role in the process of English teaching and learning in China, and it is used as an effective assessment instrument for measuring and evaluating English teaching and learning. However, because too much attention has been paid to tests, many teachers and students'teach for tests'and'learn for tests'. Testing is not the ultimate aim of teaching and learning, but serves teaching and learning. However, testing can have direct influence on students'learning motivation and attitude as well as the way and content of teaching. If a test is a good one and can be applied properly, it can be positively beneficial. Otherwise, a test of bad qualities or misuse can be harmful and might become an impediment to language teaching and learning. Therefore, doing research on English testing is to develop tests with good qualities and to achieve beneficial backwash effects to facilitate English teaching and learning.High school English testing consists of various forms of tests: mid-term test, final test, placement test, classroom test, etc. And what is more, these tests are employed so frequently that students have found such terms as weekly tests, monthly tests, unit tests, etc. so familiar and so natural. However, the problem is whether the practice has brought about positive backwash effect on English teaching and helped to improve the latter. Based on the relationship between foreign language teaching and testing, the thesis mainly discusses and analyses the problem of high frequency of testing in high school English teaching process.The author starts with investigation and research on the current testing effect via questionnaires, interviews, teaching experiments, as well as consultation of available literature concerned, and tries to find out the factors that influence its effectiveness. Based on careful investigation and research, the author finds that instead of facilitating English teaching and learning, frequent testing has misled students to learn for tests, and produce more and more obvious negative effects as follows.By means of questionnaires, interviews, teaching practice and consultation of academic data, the author conducted the research on the effect of English tests in junior high school. A year-long investigation and study reveal that too frequent testing has a negative impact on English teaching in the schools, which can be observed in the following aspects.1. In order to help students gain high scores in tests, the teachers use a training program dependant on to much testing.2. Teachers'obsession with testing can interfere with their interaction with students in the class. 3. Too much testing obviously dictates how students use exercise materials of listening, speaking, reading and writing; in other words, students'exercises are decided by the content of testing.4. Another effect of testing is the change of students'attitude toward learning before and after a test, i.e. their motivation and choice of activities for learning.Reflecting on the empirical study and the analysis, the writer concludes the research with some implications and suggestions for English teaching and learning, hoping that, under the guidance of testing and assessment theory, tests can be used properly in facilitating our English teaching.