Washback Effects Of NMET Continuation Task On Senior High School English Writing Teaching And Learning

In the field of language teaching,washback effects refer to the impact of testing on teaching and learning.National College Entrance Examination(NMET),as an important test,has a great influence on teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.In 2020,Jiangsu Province witnessed a new reform in NMET of English Test,in which great changes have taken place.A new writing form,Continuation Task(CT)was introduced into the NMET.After the reform of the writing test in the new NMET,the relationship between reading and writing has been strengthened.As a result,exploring the washback effects of CT test in the NMET in Jiangsu Province is of great necessity.This study aims to find out the washback effect of CT test on teachers and students and probes into the factors that impact writing teaching and learning so as to provide guidance and direction for teaching and learning in senior high schools.Based on Alderson and Wall’s Washback Hypotheses and Hughes Basic Model,two research questions are raised as follows:1.What washback effects do Continuation Task have on senior high school English writing teaching?2.What washback effects do Continuation Task have on senior high school English writing learning?Both quantitative(questionnaires)and qualitative(interviews,classroom observation and follow-up observation of students)were adopted in this study,which involved 16 teachers and 300 students from three grades in a three-star ordinary high school in Yancheng City of Jiangsu Province.After collecting the data of the instruments,the author mainly used Statistics Package for Social Science(SPSS 16.0)to process and analyze the data from questionnaires of teachers and students.The author also made a record of interviews,classroom observations and follow-up observations of students.The interview and classroom observation were recorded by mobile phone,and the students’ follow-up observation materials were collected in the notebook.The major findings of the research are concluded as follows:Firstly,CT writing has produced both positive and negative washback effects on writing teaching and learning.In general,CT has positive effects on teaching and learning attitudes and methods.However,CT has little influence on teaching and learning aims,materials and length.It is worthy to be noticed that CT has some negative effects on difficulties students encounter.Secondly,in order to finish the teaching task in time and squeeze more time on reviewing in Grade Three,teachers in Grade One and Grade Two mainly focus on the content of English textbooks.Therefore,their time and energy have been taken up to finish the tasks by syllabus.Lastly,most teachers and students understand the intention of introducing the CT writing,but they hold the opposite aims to teach and learn CT,which is to improve CT marks in the NMET.According to the findings,the author puts forward some suggestions for senior high school teaching and learning:First,teachers should update their concept and strengthen their alliance with the NMET.Second,teachers are expected to adopt as many different teaching materials as possible.If they have no energy to compile some materials,it’s quite necessary for teachers to use English textbooks creatively during the process of teaching.Last,teachers and students ought to distribute more time to CT writing.