An Investigation Study Of The Washback Effect Of The English Listening And Speaking Ability Test On Junior High School English Teaching

Examinations,especially those that are large scale and carry some risk,can have some impacts on teaching and learning,which we call the washback effect in academia.The English listening and speaking proficiency test of Daye City was officially implemented in the fall of 2022,and the current junior high school students will take the test in the following year.This paper aims to study the washback effect of the newly implemented English listening and speaking ability test on junior high school English teaching,focusing on the understanding and evaluation of teachers and students on the listening and speaking ability test,and what kind of impact it has on teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.This study used questionnaires,interviews,classroom observations to conduct the research.Based on the theoretical and related research results of scholars at home and abroad on the washback effect,the research development context is guided.This study involves two junior high schools,with a total of 439 students and 21 teachers from these two schools as the survey subjects.This study attempts to address the following questions.1.What is the current status of teachers’ and students’ understanding and evaluation of the listening and speaking ability test?2.What kind of washback effect does the listening and speaking ability test have on teachers’ teaching?3.What kind of washback effect does the listening and speaking ability test have on students’ learning?The results of the study are shown below:Firstly,regarding the teachers’ and students’ understanding and evaluation of the listening and speaking test in the Chinese Language Proficiency Test,since this is the first year of the reform and it is also known that the notification of the test was relatively sudden for frontline teachers,and there was no technical training and support,they are still in the exploratory stage.However,in general,teachers believe that the listening and speaking test is a good and necessary test to implement.Faced with the sudden and high-scoring listening and speaking ability test,most students also feel some pressure,but after a certain period of training and formal monthly midterm exams,most of them felt that the test had improved their English listening and speaking levels to a certain extent.More importantly,many students felt that after mastering the test-taking skills,compared with traditional listening tests,the listening and speaking ability test is more conductive to their score improvement.Secondly,the listening and speaking ability test has a certain impact on teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.First,at the teacher level,teachers have changed their teaching ideas from input to output,gradually paying attention to students’ listening and speaking training in daily teaching,and gradually achieving a state of bothy input and output.The language used in classroom teaching has gradually shifted to English.For the teachers themselves,they also pay more attention to their English speaking training and consciously enrich the teaching materials and skills of listening and speaking classes.Second,at the student leve,students have changed their previous learning mode from the old "fussing over small problems",realized the importance of exercising their pronunciation and intonation,and focused on the fluency and accuracy of English reading aloud.Based on the research questions,the following countermeasures and suggestions are proposed: firstly,teachers should improve the quality of teaching in the classroom,align themselves with the current curriculum standards,improve their research ability,and learn new teaching techniques to help their teaching and enhance their confidence in teaching.Such as speech visualization technology that can visually identify students’ speech weaknesses in the classroom.Secondly,students should actively accept the English listening and speaking ability test,form an independent learning mode,switch to strengthen their own learning methods and accept the test with a full mind.Finally,schools and educational teaching authorities should respond to teachers’ and students’ understanding and evaluation of the listening and speaking ability test one by one.Effective measures should be taken to conduct awareness-raising sessions for front-line teachers and students about the listening and speaking ability test,and to discuss in depth the background,significance,forms and requirements of the test.