The Washback Of The Reform Of National Matriculation English Test In Tianjin From Students’ Perspective

Washback refers to the effects of changes in exams or exam policies on teaching and learning.As a large-scale and high-stake test,the National Matriculation English Test(short for NMET)has a strong washback effect on senior high students’ English learning.In 2017,a new policy was implemented to organize NMET twice a year in Tianjin.It is necessary to explore what changes the new policy has brought to students in order to examine whether the policy benefits learning or not,and this is the purpose of this study.In this study,the following questions are expected to be answered:1)What is the general situation of students’ English learning?2)What are the students’ attitudes toward the reform of the NMET(Tianjin)?3)How does the reform influence the students’ learning time allocation,classroom activities practice and classroom activities mastery?2864 participants from 4 schools out of 4 districts were selected to complete the questionnaire.The participants in this study included 2864 students from Senior One to Senior Three in Binhai New Area,Nankai,Heping and Wuqing district.The questionnaire survey was employed as the research method and the software SPSS22.0 was used for data recording,processing and analyzing.The results show that the reform of NMET(Tianjin)has complex washback effects on senior high students’ English learning,beneficial or harmful from different perspectives.On the one hand,the reform of NMET has a positive washback effect on students’ learning.Students take the NMET as the strongest learning motivation and have a positive attitude towards the implementation of “twice-a-year” examination policy;students spend more time and energy learning English both on and off school;students pay more attention to test-related skill.On the other hand,the reform causes pressure on students and has a certain negative effect on classroom learning activities.Students and teachers ignore speaking ability,discourse ability and language use in regular teaching and learning;students take rote learning to learn English passively without using the language in real communication,which leads to insufficient opportunities for group discussion and individual speech;homework assigned by teachers is featured with only test-oriented,and it is in alignment with the test-oriented attitudes of teachers and students,the general situation of teaching and learning at high school.Based on the above-mentioned findings,some suggestions were put forward to both the test authority and teachers and students to benefit English learning: 1)Add oral tasks to NMET;2)Optimize testing methods and content of the writing part;3)Reduce the proportion of objective items;4)Establish a student-centered classroom teaching model;5)Explore more interesting homework with diversity.