The Washback Effects Of NMET Gap-filling Test Task On Students’ English Grammar Learning In Different Types Of High Schools

This research,on the basis of the washback hypotheses put forward by Alderson and Wall in 1993 and by means of questionnaire,interview and classroom observation,investigates the washback effects of grammar gap-filling test task of the NMET(the National Matriculation of English Test)on students’ grammar learning and the differences among students from three different types of high schools in Fujian province(level-1 standard high school,level-2 standard high school,level-3 standard high school)from the perspectives of their learning attitudes,contents and methods.Based on the results collected and data analyzed,the major findings are listed as follows:(1)grammar gap-filling test task has exerted both positive and negative washback effects on students’ learning attitudes in different types of high schools.On the one hand,students’ awareness of cohesion and coherence is increased,and they reflect more on their English learning due to this task of the NMET.On the other hand,this task fails to increase students’ interest in learning English grammar because they still have to memorize a large number of tedious grammatical rules.For students in level-3 standard high schools,the pressure brought by this task surpasses the motivation it offers,and the situation is just the other way around with students in level-1 and level-2 standard high schools;(2)grammar gap-filling task has a positive washback effect on students’ grammar learning contents.Students pay more attention to grammar learning contents at different levels such as the cohesion and coherence of discourse in order to perform better in this test task.This positive washback effect is more substantial in level-1 and level-2 standard high schools than in level-3 standard high schools;(3)the washback effects of this task on students’ learning methods vary from school to school.In level-1standard high schools,this task has exerted a positive effect.Students adopt a variety of methods to learn and practice grammar.In level-2 standard high schools,this washback effect is not as obvious as that in level-1 standard high schools.Evidence shows that students sometimes learn grammar by means of sentence analysis and discourse comprehension.However,in level-3 standard high schools,students report a much lower frequency of grammar learning and less variety of learning methods,indicating that this test task fails to exert a positive effect on their learning methods.Concerning the significance of this study,it will be able to verify some propositions of Alderson and Wall’s washback hypotheses and provide some enlightenments for high school English grammar teaching.