A Study Of The Washback Effects Of TEM4-Oral On Oral English Teaching And Learning

Test for English Majors-Band 4 Oral(TEM4-Oral)was firstly implemented by the National Advisory Committee for Foreign Language Teaching(NACFLT)in 1999.It takes second-year English majors in college as test-takers.Through the unremitting efforts of language test experts for more than a decade,the authority of TEM4-Oral has been enhanced and its evaluation function of oral teaching has been improved.Washback refers to the effects of testing on teaching and learning(Hughes,1989).Since the 1980 s,the theoretical and empirical researches of washback effects have developed rapidly,such as Alderson & Wall's(1993)15 Washback Hypotheses,Hughes'(1993)PPP Model and the study of washback effects on teaching.At present,some researchers have studied washback;however,there are some limitations.(1)Most researchers paid more attention to College Entrance Examination,College English Test and some tests,but ignored the study of TEM4-Oral;(2)Most previous researchers only took teacher or student as the study object,but ignored the English program administrator;(3)Although some researchers used both quantitative and qualitative methods,they did not do a comprehensive analysis of the data.Therefore,this study aims at filling the gaps in previous studies on these three aspects.Based on Alderson & Wall's(1993)15 Washback Hypotheses and Hughes'(1993)PPP Model(Participant,Process,Products)as the theoretical framework,the present study combines the quantitative(questionnaire)and qualitative(interview)methods to investigate the washback effects of TEM4-Oral on oral English teaching and learning.The participants of the study are 513 sophomores majoring in English and 18 oral English teachers and 6 English program administrators from 6 universities in Xi'an.The results show that TEM4-Oral has positive washback effects on teacher's teaching attitude,teaching content,teaching method,teaching rate,teaching sequence,teaching range and teaching quality.TEM4-Oral has both positive and negative washback effects on teaching depth and teaching results.Moreover,TEM4-Oral has positive washback effects on student's learning content,learning rate,learning sequence,learning depth and learning quality and has both positive and negative washback effects on learning attitude,learning method,learning range and learning results.In addition,as for English program administrators,TEM4-Oral has positive washback effects on the implementation of the syllabus and English teaching reform.Also,it benefits oral teaching and the development of the department.On the whole,TEM4-Oral has more positive washback effects than negative washback effects on teachers,students and English program administrators.What's more,the intensities of washback effects of TEM4-Oral on these three study objects are different.It shows that the intensity of the washback effects of TEM4-Oral on English program administrators is the highest and the intensity of the washback on teachers is the second-highest.The intensity of the washback effects of TEM4-Oral on students is the lowest.The findings of the research provide some implications for oral English teachers,English major students and English program administrators.Teachers should help students to build the oral learning confidence and take full advantages of the test to find students' weaknesses of oral learning.Students should well manage the relationship between TEM4-Oral and oral English study and make use of the test to master more useful sentence structures and expressions.English program administrators should pay more attention to the TEM4-Oral and adjust the teaching method to promote the implementation of the syllabus and English teaching reform.