A Study Into The Washback Effect Of Booth-style Oral English Test In A Shenzhen Primary School

In the part of “Evaluation Recommendation” of the English Curricular Standards in the Phrase of Compulsory Education(2017 Edition),it is pointed out that primary school evaluation should adopt a reasonable combination of oral,listening and written examinations to examine students’ basic understanding and expression abilities.Most of the research on testing focused on large-scale language tests in the past two decades.There remains shortage of research on the washback effect on oral English test in primary schools.In the past three years,the author’s school designed “Booth-style” Oral English Test.To explore teachers and students’ perception of using booth-style oral English test and whether the test has washback effect,this study is carried out based on Alderson and Wall’s washback Hypothesis.It investigated 3 school English teachers and 242 pupils in Grade 4.Questionnaire and interview were used in data collection and analysis in this study.It’s found that: 1.Most of the teachers and students are optimistic about the booth-style oral English test.2.There are both positive and negative washback effect of booth-style oral English test on teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.The degree and type of washback effect varies from teachers to teachers and students to students.Overall,the positive effect outweighs the negative one.