A Study Of The Washback Of Listening Comprehension Test In NMET On Senior High English Teaching And Learning

Listening comprehension test is commonly applied in all kinds of testing in Chinabecause of its advantages of having high mark reliability, measuring the listening abilityeffectively and covering other abilities in limited time. Listening comprehension test inNational Matriculation English Test (NMET) has deep influences on the teachers and students.Though systematic studies have been conducted on the washback since early1990s in China,the theoretical and empirical studies on NMET relatively lag behind and there are fewinvestigations on the washback of listening comprehension test in NMET.This study attempts to make an investigation into the washback of listeningcomprehension test in NMET on English teaching and learning in senior high schools. Inorder to find out the influences of this test format on teaching and learning, two questions areput forward:1) On what aspects of students’ learning does listening comprehension test inNMET have the positive and negative washback?2) On what aspects of teachers’ teachingdoes listening comprehension test in NMET have the positive and negative washback?To answer the research questions mentioned above, the researcher did an investigationamong410students and51teachers from four senior high schools in Shandong Province.Questionnaire, interview and classroom observation were taken as the instruments. The paperalso used descriptive statistics in the process of data analysis.The findings of this study illustrate that most teachers and students have positiveattitudes towards listening comprehension test in NMET but the students do not give a highevaluation of the quality of this test format. This test format has washback effect on bothteaching and learning and the positive washback of this test format is bigger than negative onein all aspects except teaching method. Listening comprehension test in NMET also helps toenlarge students’ vocabulary and improve their oral English, reading and writing abilities. Thebiggest negative washback is shown on “teaching for test” and “learning for test” phenomena.Some teachers and students may just spend most of their time and energy on preparing for thetest and neglecting the improvement of whole English abilities. Thus, some implications werefound. For the test constructors, they need to provide high quality listening comprehension test in NMET for the candidates. The scores of this test format should be reconsidered to offerpositive washback on teaching and learning. Teachers need to adjust their teaching attitude,teaching method and teaching material of listening comprehension test to promote the positivewashback and minimize the negative one. Students should focus on the improvement oflanguage proficiency, not engaging themselves in papers.