A Study Of New CET-4Washback Effects On College English Learning

Washback effect of language testing is the definition of the influences of testing to thetwo elements between teaching and learning. It can be categorized into positive one andnegative one. The mentioned concept “the new CET-4” in this thesis refers to the reformedCET-4since December in2013. The purpose of the thesis is to explore, trace and analyzewashback effects of the new CET-4on college English learning. Through the whole journey,the CET-4passes through so many reformations and polish for several times as an extensiveand massive national test under the test subjects of college students, having been formed thepresent new CET-4testing mode. The new CET-4has drawn the attention of moreresearchers in foreign and domestic testing field, the subsequent researches of its washbackeffects are also one of focuses of domestic research. According to the document of collegeEnglish curriculum requirements of the year2013, the goal of CET-4is to “cultivatestudents’ strong reading ability, certain listening and translation ability, primary writing andspeaking ability, making students acquire necessary professional information with Englishtool and laying the foundation of improving their English proficiency further. Therefore thetest is mainly used to examine students’ competence of language use and the master ofgrammatical structure and vocabulary use.” To further enhance the assessment of test takers’overall language proficiency, the CET-4is made appropriate adjustments in the test format.The most obvious change is paragraph translation in the translation part, increasing theproportion of subjective items in the whole test. The newly reformed CET-4has been carriedout since Dec.2013.The aim of the research is to probe into the influences of the new CET-4since Dec.2013on the college English learning on the foundation of learning from the research products atdomestic and abroad. More correctly, it is mainly made research of what are the washbackeffects of the new CET-4on college English learning, whether the expected positivewashback effects are fully realized, the existed problems and solutions. In the researchprocess, the three instruments are employed: questionnaire, class observation and interview.The subjects under questionnaire are184non-English major juniors who have just taken partin the new CET-4in June2014, the rest of the subjects under the class observation are sophomores who are learning college English course, the interviewees are20students whohave selected from the research subjects under the questionnaire. The research questions areincluded as followed:1) In what aspects does the new CET-4have washback effects on thecollege English learning?2) In what aspects does the new CET-4achieve intended positivewashback effects as we expect originally on the college English learning in line with thedocument of College English Curriculum requirements?The findings prove that the washback effects of the new CET-4on the college Englishlearning indeed exist, including both positive and negative washback effects, producingmore positive effects than negative effects. The included positive washback effects aremainly presented in the following aspects:1) The new CET-4potentially forms a motivationto encourage students to study English, enlarge their volumes of vocabulary accumulation.2)It largely and comprehensively reflects their overall English proficiency and practicalability.3) It introduces western culture invisibly.4) The proportion of integrative tasks aregradually increased. It is the first time to make translation type as an independent part to teststudents’ translation skills. It is required that students should not only have solid foundationof vocabulary use and grammatical structure, translation skills are gradually taken seriously.The included negative washback effects are mainly presented in the following aspects:1)Students’ motivations to learn English are still to cope with the CET-4, their overall Englishproficiency and practical abilities of language use are not improved prominently.2) Theproportion of test items is still imbalanced to some extent, still occupying more objectiveitems than subjective items, making test takers take scores more seriously rather thancommunicative competence.3) The time arrangement of the new CET-4is still the same asthe past, that is in the late June and December, it means that students need to prepare fortheir final examination and the CET-4during that period of time, making them feel morestressed and anxious. In general, students have improved much consciousnesses of theimportance of communicative competence since the newly reformed CET-4, but theseinfluences are not so obvious for some students. The reasons that give rise to the negativeeffects both include the new CET-4itself and students themselves:1)The new CET-4is onlyto increase the proportions of translation based on the past test format, changing fromsentence to paragraph. Although students have taken the importance of listening, reading,writing and translation skills more seriously, the phenomenon of students’ ignorance oflanguage use and emphasis on language knowledge is not obviously changed, oral English isstill neglected by most students.2) The overall test format of the new CET-4and content in the aspects of material reality and the examination of practical competence are still need tobe improved further. The reasons of students themselves are the fact that the preparation ofCET-4has conflicts with their major compulsory courses, hampering their normal learningplans and leading to the fact that they can not arrange their learning course properly.On the foundation and statement of the these results,the author offers some solutions toweaken them as soon as possible and strengthens the positive washback effects, such as,fortest designers, the more introduction of more integrative tasks, the popularity of CET-SETin all the participants, the increasing frequency of time arrangement of the new CET-4.ForEnglish teachers, they should introduce more communicative activities into the class andimprove students’ English proficiency and practical ability.