Language Tests and Their Influence on English Teaching.doc

language tests and and their influence on english teachingchapter1 introductionin recent years, as our country is opening up to the outside world, our world has becoming smaller and smaller, some called “global village”. under the great economic situation, english learning have regards as a kind of fashion. most students have learning the second language before they enter primary school. in university, different types of language examinations are overwhelming the whole campus. most of us are addicted in these tests. the graduated students and the college students both are keen on take part in all sorts of language tests. they try their best to pass cet4 and cet6, for the english majors, they contend that they should gain the result of tem4 and tem8. in addition, there are some other tests, such as ielts，gre, toefl, bec, translation, interpretation, and so on. 1.1 kinds of language tests1.11 the first category: national college english tests (cet4,cet6 and tem4,tem8)organizer: office of the national college english test committeetarget audience: cet4 and cet6 for the (non) english major in college who learning in the higher institution, does not open to social workers since the end of 2007; tem4 and tem8 only for the sophomore and senior english major who have passed the national college entrance examination.the time of examination: cet4 and cet6 is in june and december each year；tem4 is in april each year , tem8 is in march each year.the means of registration: for cet4 and cet6, students unified by college english department; for tem4 and tem8, registration with the collective college card in november or december each year, details will be subject to the notice of the universitys office of academic affairs. do not accept registration of other students.1.12 the second category: the tests for studying abroad (toefl, ielts, gre, gmat)toeflorganizer: toefl，test of english as a foreign language, launched by ets(educational testing service), examination center of ministry of education in our country is responsible for it.target audience: university graduates, open to the community. currently, there are about 3,000 universities require students in non-english speaking countries, no matter what professional learning, must participate in toefl exam. toefl scores in many institutions has become an important standard whether to grant scholarships. meanwhile, toefl is also a proof of english proficiency, has regarded as a standard to measure english proficiency by some companies, especially foreign-funded enterprises. there is no uniform requirement of scores to the candidates in u.s. and canadian universities and research institutions. but, chinese high school students, in order to enter prestigious university, the score of toffel should reach 600 points or more.the time of examination: the current toefl test 4 times a year, you can choose the written or computer test, result is valid for 2 years. please visit the neea toefl ibt registration website: or , or call the toefl ibt test center national service hotline: 86 -10-62798822 to get your specific exam location, date and seat availabilitythe means of registration: online registration, each exam registration deadline will be 3 days before the exam. candidates based on past facts, there are free places before the close of each test, usually. in order to avoid causing unnecessary network congestion and the transfer fee refunds, because candidates focus on register online. i hope the candidates stagger time online registration, according to their own examination arrangements.conclusion: currently, there are about 3,000 universities require students in non-english speaking countries, no matter what professional learning, must participate in toefl exam. toefl scores in many institutions has become an important standard whether to grant scholarships. meanwhile, toefl is also a proof of english proficiency, has regarded as a standard to measure english proficiency by some companies, especially foreign-funded enterprises. there is no uniform requirement of scores to the candidates in u.s. and canadian universities and research institutions. but, chinese high school students, in order to enter prestigious university, the score of toffel should reach 600 points or more. toffel is aim to get a comprehensive survey of students ability to control the english language in the traditional reading, listening, writing, on the basis of three parts, not only add the speaking part, and also introduced the ability to examine the comprehensive examination form. the test is mainly aimed at students studying at the university may encounter a variety of common scenes, including classroom lectures and extra-curricular activities and settings. many american universities give a high evaluation to toefl test methods.ieltsorganizer: international english language testing system, referred to as the ielts. it is an international english test, is a kind of co-management employed by the test center of university of cambridge, the british council and the australian agency for international development. in our country, examination center of ministry of education is responsible for it.target audience: at present, the visiting scholar who is sent to british public school, and people who is study master or doctoral degree in personnel required to participate in this examination.the time of examination: specific exam location, date and seat availability, please visit the neea ielts ibt registration website: /cn, or call the national ibt ielts test center service hotline: 01062798811.the means of registration: you can enter the official website (/cn) reported in the internet at any time.conclusion: the test is to assess language skills of the candidates engaged in study, training or life in the english-speaking countries regarding english as a tool. the examination is composed of four parts, that is, listening, reading, writing and oral examinations. all candidates will apply to the same listening and oral modes. oral examiners will have a face-to-use form with the candidates. reading and writing are divided into two modes: academic is to assess whether the candidate ready to attend english-speaking environment in the university or graduate courses. training (general training class), focus on assessment of education in the broad social environment, basic survival skills. this type applies to english-speaking countries to complete secondary education, access to work experience, participate in non-academic training, candidates, and immigration applicants.greorganizer: gre , graduate record examinations, qualifying examination for the graduate record examination.target audience: sponsored by educational testing service (educational testing service, referred to as ets). examination center of ministry of education is responsible for it in our country.the time of examination: regarding the test of 2008-2009 as an example: the time of gre exam in 2008-2009 as follows: the candidates participate in written test in october 2008 should complete a part of machine test during july 1, 2008 to september 19, 2008. (note: there is no examination during the national holidays.) the time of written test of 2008 is in october 25.the candidates participate in written test in june 2009 should complete a part of machine test during september 22, 2008 to april 30, 2009. (note: there is no examination during the national holidays.) the time of written test of 2009 is in june 6.the means of registration: each month of the year can register for the test, registration at: .gmatorganizer: gmat, graduate management admission test. the scores of gmat test are used to assess the suitability of applicants for admission in business, economics and management and other professional graduate study in united states, britain, australia and other countries universities. they will determine whether to admit according to the scores of gmat test. the u.s. test centers (ets) of princeton, new jersey sponsored the test, commissioned by the committee on graduate management admission prices (gmac) of united states.target audience: those who want to apply for study in united states, study the following majors, such as master of business administration, master of management engineering and master of laws in business administration, phd are asked to participate in our gmat test: general management of the project, accounting, insurance, statistics, arts management, behavioral science, library management, economics, financial finance, information management systems, business education, business management, advertising, international trade and tourism management school and so on.the time of examination: each candidate can take an exam in each calendar month, and one can attend it for five years each year.the means of registration: according to the notice of test center, reported in the internet at any time.1.13 the third category: other language tests.lsatlsat, short of law school admission test, the admission committee of pennsylvania law school (law services) in united states is responsible for hosting the law school admission exam. the result, as one of the reference conditions of law school admission in united states. it will be regarded as a predictor to access ones proper and reasonable inferences and determine the capacity, performance analysis and evaluation capacity. there is no restriction of apply qualification. in short, lsat is to test the english proficiency of students studying united states, and its results only as one of the conditions of applicants for law school. almost all law schools require applicants to attend lsat test. the test is mainly to test the candidates the following areas: the capacity of read and understand article accurately, the ability to draw reasonable conclusions and organize information, the ability to criticism with reason, the capacity to analyze and evaluate others rationally. lsat is held four times each year, they are in february, june, october and december. in mainland china, there are fixed exam in june and december at peking university. some candidates in mainland china will choose to participate in the lsat examinations held in october or february in hong kong.twe, tsetwe, test of written. its objective is to testing writing skills, its total score is six points, the result is only valid for schools to understand the level of writing of applicants. many schools will make the appropriate request on twe score. it is always held together with toffel. in our country, now each toefl exam is held with a twe examination. twe exam is scored separately, did not join the toefl score, but it will be reported at the same time of toffel exam. many schools have special requirements on the twe scores. you should pay more attention: only the same day (that is the same batch) of the toefl and twe scores can be recognized.tse, test of spoken english. it is a kind of oral proficiency test for students in non-native english-speaking countries held by educational testing service in the united states. the test is mainly to test candidates in speaking. the time of examination is in january, may, august, october each year, on the same day of toffel. the role of tse is similar to toefl, gre, gmat. the test is very flexible, and can accurately test the actual ability of expressing ideas verbally of a person. as many of applicants to study abroad want to get scholarships, tse oral examination on the application for teaching assistants and research assistants is very important. at the same time, even if the school does not require the score of tse, if you have a good tse scores will also increase the chance of entering it, can improve the confidence of your language. therefore, whether from the perspective of fighting for scholarships, or from the point of view to learn english, tse is very important.1.2 the purpose of teststhe purpose of test is not to choose a top-notch individual, but to check whether education to meet the basic learning needs: that is, ;people to survive, in order to fully develop their abilities, for a dignified life and work and participate fully in development, in order to improve their quality of life, is to make the informed decision-making, is the need to continue to study the basic learning tools and basic learning content, which considered needs of basic learning as the evaluation criteria of education. fundamentally change the error situation of evaluation purpose. it has changed the test type which regarding selection examination as purpose. establishment of a scientific evaluation system is the need of modernization in urgent. therefore, should pay attention to the following questions:attention to evaluating the practical content. since the main purpose of educational evaluation is to check whether the school education to teach students the basic learning tools and knowledge in the development of social existence, then the contents of school examinations to the course to the basic, practical tilt. students want to survival and develop in modern society must be based on the basic concept of a reasonable knowledge structure. therefore, the examination should test the ability of tilt. testing capabilities represent the characteristics of modern practice exams, and reflect the educational pursuit that the modern test to meet basic survival and development. attention to the extensive evaluation of coverage, three-dimensional nature. to measure the education whether to meets the basic needs of survival and development, educational evaluation must be a peoples overall quality of the object, not just the narrow perception, understanding areas.if the main purpose of the examination not only to the selection, but also to education, then the exam can achieve norm-referenced with reference to the unity of the individual. success education in the evaluation of the individual student is the combination of norm-referenced and the reference implementation. in order to achieve the best test we should guide the development of students with different purposes.to sum up, we know the future examination in school education still occupies an important position, while the function of selecting is the objective needs of society, can not be canceled in the longer period of time. however, to meet the basic learning needs, the importance of examination is the relocation of testing purpose. education reform is an urgent task.chapter2 motivation of taking part in those testsas we all know, as an english learner, in the following ill meticulous talk more about english learning motivations conception, classification and influence for english learner in learning english and how to make it effectively arouse and foster english learners motivation, make the english learner learning english more actively , applying english in practice happy and showing themselves style confidently. about motivation, different scholars have different understanding. but in general, many scholars thought motivation is a kind of internal drive that encourages the students to pursue a course (harmer 1983: 3)。in my opinion, learning motivation is the internal process or power, which promote , guide and maintain the students learning activities, and make the activity towards a certain learning objectives. learning motivation aims at explaining our each persons real reason for learning, for what reason to work hard and how much efforts are you willing to take for learning. therefore, it played an important role in our life, and is also very worthwhile talking.2.1 classification of motivation and their influencein order to write this paper, i read many books. during the process, i found there are many types of motivation, such as intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, integrative motivation, instrumental motivation, global motivation, situational motivation, task motivation and so on. some are very similar, some very different. to make it short, only some motivations are discussed here. the concrete elaboration following. in the traditional, people divides the foreign language academic motivation into three kinds: the union motive (integrative motivation), the tool motive (instrumental motivation) and causes the motive finally (resultative motivation) (ellis, 1994 509- 15). however, the integrative motivation indicates an interest in learning a foreign language to communicate with members of the foreign language community. this motivation occurs when the learners wish to understand the culture of the foreign language; the instrumental motivation stresses the pragmatic aspects of learning a language without particular need of communication with the foreign language community; but the resultative motivation refers to the motive which causes as a result of some result. wilkins said, “the instrumentally motivated learner requires the language as a means to some other end, whereas for the integrative learner the language and all that it brings by way of culture is an end in itself.” here has another classification that is intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation which divided by cognition psychologists. the intrinsic motivation comes from the doers interesting for they want to do; however, the extrinsic motivation is the result caused by external factors. and the intrinsic motivation has a relation with the long-term success; the extrinsic motivation has a relation with the short-term success.but in my thesis, i want to say that all the english learning motivation seems to be blend together. for example, the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic motivation are blend with the integrative motivation and the instrumen