（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）高校英语应用能力考试的反拨效应研究.pdf

a study on the washback of practical english test for colleges iv 摘 要 反拨效应是指测试对教与学的影响。作为教育领域的一个重要研究课题，近 年来引起众多学者的广泛关注, 对其进行了一系列深入的理论和实证研究，这些 加深了人们对测试反拨效应的认识，一定程度上促进了测试和教学改革。 高校英语应用能力测试是面向高职高专学生的大规模标准化测试， 关于测试 方法和内容等已有大量的研究，但是对于这项考试反拨效应的实证研究任然甚 少。 因此，本研究借鉴国内外对语言测试反拨效应的研究方法和模式，基于 alderson pretco; english teaching; english learning 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 v abbreviations ce college english teaching cet college english test cet-set college english test-spoken english test clt communicative language teaching efl english as a foreign language elt english learning and teaching esp english for specific propose hvcs higher vocational colleges ielts international english language testing system met matriculation english test pretco practical english test for colleges spss statistical package for the social science tem test for english majors toefl test of english as a foreign language a study on the washback of practical english test for colleges vi list of tables and figures table 1.1: basic requirements for the course of english for hvcs.2 table 3.1 information of the participants (teachers) .20 table 3.2 information of the participants (students) 20 table 4.1: pretco washback on the selection of teaching material.28 table 4.2: pretco washback on the selection of learning material.28 table 4.3: pretco washback on teaching method.29 table 4.4: pretco washback on learning method.30 figure 2.1: test impacts at micro and macro level.10 figure 2.2: a basic model of washback. 13 figure 4.1: the nature of washback on teaching by pretco.24 figure4.2: the nature of washback on teaching by pretco.25 中南民族大学中南民族大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是本人在导师的指导下独立进行研究所 取得的研究成果。除了文中特别加以标注引用的内容外，本论文不包含任 何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写的成果作品。对本文的研究做出重要贡 献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的 法律后果由本人承担。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意 学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文 被查阅和借阅。本人授权中南民族大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内 容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存 和汇编本学位论文。 本学位论文属于 1、保密，在_年解密后适用本授权书。 2、不保密。 （请在以上相应方框内打“” ） 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 i acknowledgements i would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to many people who help me in various ways to the completion of the research. first and foremost, my heartfelt thanks must be extended to my supervisor professor zhang liyu, for her precious advices and constant encouragements through all the stage of the writing of this thesis. her patient guidance and mother-like supports greatly contribute to my academic improvement during my postgraduate period. second, many thanks must also go to the knowledgeable teachers in foreign department of south-central university for nationalities. their enlightening lectures and sparkling thoughts give me much impression, and deepen my understanding on linguistics as well as the methodology of linguistic research. also i would like to express my sincere gratitude to the teachers and students who participate in the investigation in the three sample colleges. with their cooperation and generous helps, i could collect precious data for the investigation and then finish my study. moreover, i am grateful to my dear friends who have always been there ready to help me whenever i need it. last but not least, words can hardly express my gratitude and love to my family for their silent support and great confidence in me all the time. 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 1 chapter1 introduction this chapter is the general introduction of the research. it begins with the overview of pretco (practical english test for colleges), and then probes into the reason why the author choose this topic, and talks about the significance of the study afterwards, finally provides the organization of the whole paper. 1.1 overview of pretco the object of higher vocational education in mainland china is to cultivate senior applied talents in various fields such as technology, production, management, service and so on, to satisfy the local needs of industries and enterprises. based on the basic requirements for the course of english for hvcs (higher vocational colleges) issued by ministry of education, the guiding principle of english teaching and learning of hvcs is “putting special emphasis on practicality, which is sufficient to satisfy the needs of the future work”. therefore, the english teaching aim and characteristics of higher vocational education differs from undergraduates, which stresses the cultivation of students practical ability and emphasizes the development of communicative ability in practical work after their graduation (an, 2003). students from hvcs learn english for dealing with some simple foreign trade, not for academic exchange or scientific study. english teaching and learning of hvcs is unlike that of undergraduates and the learning effects should not be evaluated in the light of undergraduates standards. so just like college english test band 4/6(cet 4/6) for undergraduates, pretco is particularly worked out for the students of hvcs. pretco is sponsored by the higher education department of ministry of education of china and administered by the pretco testing committee. it aims to promote the implementation of basic requirement in english teaching and learning of hvcs; measure objectively and accurately the english proficiency of non-english majors in hvcs, provide feedback, allowing college english(ce) teachers and a study on the washback of practical english test for colleges 2 students to improve their teaching and learning. pretco consists of two levels: level a and level b. since its inception in 1998, it has become routine to simultaneously administer both levels biannually, often in january and june. level a is the standard requirements and level b is the transitional requirements. for the reason of the differences of the students english proficiency, many colleges carry out placement teaching in accordance with the two levels. more details are given in the next table: table 1.1 basic requirements for the course of english for higher vocational colleges (higher education department of ministry of education, 2002) level a level b vocabulary students are able to cognize 3400 words including 1600 words that they have been learned before enrollment and phrases consisting of these words. furthermore, they can spell about 2100 among them correctly, while they should master about 400 professional english terms combined with their majors. students are able to cognize 2500 words including 1000 words that they have been learned before enrollment and phrases consisting of these words. furthermore, they can spell about 1500 among them correctly. listening students are able to catch easy and clear dialogues and statements in daily life and foreign trades, whose speed is 120 words per minute. students are able to catch easy and clear dialogues and statements in daily life and foreign trades, whose speed is 100 words per minute. oral english students are able to do general classroom communication and foreign communication. students are able to do simple classroom communication and foreign communication. reading students are able to read brief english materials including practical materials with correct comprehension, in which new words account for less than 3% of the total words, and their speed is more than 70 words per minute. students are able to read brief english materials including practical materials with relative correct comprehension, in which new words account for less than 3% of the total words, and their speed is more than 50 words per minute. translation students are able to translate moderate english materials into chinese by dictionary. when translating practical materials in students are able to translate easy english materials into chinese by dictionary. 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 3 which new words account for less than 5% of the total words, their speed is more than 250 words per hour. writing students are able to write a proposition composition of 80 to 100 words in 30 minutes and they can write practical writing with correct layout. students are able to write simple and short composition and they can write practical writing with basically correct layout. with regard to the test format, it is composed of five parts, namely listening comprehension (15%), structure (15%), reading comprehension (35%), translation-english to chinese (20%), and writing (15%), only 48% of which are objective items, so that testing validity is relatively high. pretco spoken english has been administered in some colleges but has not been popularized so we will not discuss it in this paper. the so called “practical english” refers to english with practical value or english used practically in certain specialty or industry, namely english for specific purpose (esp), while hvcs incline to adopt the former concept which is more extensive than esp. the partiality of pretco mainly embodies in the test content especially the reading and writing part. (1) listening comprehension: conversation, short passage which appear in daily life for the usage of practical communication. (2) structure: sentence structure, grammar, word form. (3) reading comprehension: mainly including general and practical materials about culture, society, common sense, scientific popularization, business and trade. (4) translation: sentence or paragraph, general and practical materials account for 50% respectively. (5) writing: application, resume, contract, letter, bills of document, technical manuals and so on. 1.2 origin of the study with the rapid development of language testing theory, washback, as one of six a study on the washback of practical english test for colleges 4 qualities of test usefulness, has arrested a great body of concerns over the recent years. it is defined as the effect or influence of the test on teaching and learning. alderson and walls “washback hypotheses” is regarded as the foremost and most basic theory for all the later study. and then many related theoretical and empirical studies have been carried out in order to gain insights into this phenomenon. these studies have deepened peoples understanding of washback and promoted the reform and innovation in language testing and teaching. pretco is a large-scale national standardized efl test for the students of higher vocational colleges and has been in operation for a long time. it has attracted an increasing number of candidates for the expansion of higher education in china. such a large-scale public test has a heavy social weight. in other words, it has become a “high-stakes” test. a “high-stakes” test is one that exerts a decisive impact on the lives of a huge number of individuals and once such impact happens, it can hardly reversed. the pretco is a “high-stakes” test for the following reasons: (1) many educational authorities regard the test results as an index of paramount importance in evaluating the overall quality of ce teaching and learning. (2) many colleges use the pretco certificate as a graduation requirement for students. (3) a pretco certificate has become a prerequisite in successfully obtaining employment for graduates. over the last decade, it has been realized in the field of language education that any “high-stakes” test inevitably exerts washback on the teaching and learning preceding the test, educational researchers should explore the nature of washback in order to improve the teaching and learning. in comparison with cet4/6, people do not attach enough importance to pretco even though it is also a large-scale national standardized efl (english as foreign language) test in china. the limited existing researches about pretco are concentrated on its teaching method and content etc, and nearly all of them are suggestions or assertions rather than empirical studies about its washback. therefore, it is necessary and worthwhile to do deeper and comprehensive study from 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 5 this aspect. this paper focuses on an empirical study of washback within the specific context of pretco. on the basis of sufficient investigation, this study is intended to explore the pretco washback on the different aspects of english teaching and learning proposed in alderson and walls hypothesis. the significance of this research lie in the next aspects: demonstration the existence of washback, observation the extent and nature of washback to offer references on deficiencies in present english education to the parties concerned, implications to related participants to advance positive washback. 1.3 organization of the thesis the dissertation consists of six chapters. chapter one is a general introduction of the present study, including the overview of pretco, origin of the study, significance of the study, and the organization of the dissertation. chapter two mainly focuses on literature review of washback, it illustrate relationship between testing and teaching, conception of washback, theoretical and empirical studies of washback abroad and at home. chapter three introduces the research methodology. research questions, participants, instruments, and data collection and analysis are all presented in this part. chapter four is the main body of this paper, which reports the results of the questionnaire survey, classroom observation and interview. chapter five summarizes the findings and at the same time put forward implications of this research. chapter six provides a conclusion of the whole thesis, and points out the limitation of the present study, also makes some recommendations for further study. a study on the washback of practical english test for colleges 6 chapter 2 literature review although washback is a relatively new topic in language education, over the past decade, it has been long discussed and some researchers have published studies on it. actually studies of washback can be roughly divided into two periods: theoretical study period and empirical study period. in the former period, schools and scholars put their viewpoints on its definition, nature as well as working mechanism. while in the later period, more emphases were placed on carrying out empirical researches. consequently, an increasing number of explorers abroad have been made various in-depth investigations into this field from different aspects to make up for this margin. most of their research objects are the international standardized tests and questionnaire, interview, and classroom observation are the three most frequently used research methods. in this literature review, some significant theories as well as some empirical studies in the two periods are introduced, which includes relationship between teaching and testing, conception of washback, the theoretical and empirical research from home and abroad concerning washback in second and foreign language education. 2.1 relationship between teaching and testing there are two opposing views on the relationship between teaching and testing. at one extreme, testing is considered the focus of language teaching, i.e. “teaching to the test”. this is commonly criticized but actually the practice of some language teachers. at the other extreme, testing is seen as an obedient servant of teaching, namely, “testing should follow and ape teaching”. this is generally accepted and widely practiced by the majority of language teachers. according to the latter view, testing is one of the many stages (usually the last one) in the framework of language teaching, but it may exert an influence on all aspects of language teaching, the influence is known as washback. 中南民族大学硕士学位论文 7 in addition to the two arguments about the relationship between teaching and testing, there is a neutral one put forward by hughes who holds the view the proper relation between teaching and testing is definitely of partnership, teaching and testing are so closely interrelated that it is virtually impossible to work in either field without being constantly concerted with other. when aware of this relationship we should, on the one hand, minimize the potential negative washback of testing on teaching and learning by means of changing the way we test, as a result, the characteristics of the test correspondingly become more closely to those of teaching and learning. on the other hand, there should be an improvement in teaching and learning through the use of such tests. the test should incorporate or be compatible with what we believe to be principles of effective teaching and learning. the researcher of the present study is of the opinion that testing is to serve teaching and learning. the aim of the research is to explore the relationship between pretco and english teaching and learning of hvcs. 2.2 conception of washback 2.2.1 definition of washback in the educational measurement literature, “washback” is variously known as “test impact” (buck, 1991), “consequential validity” (messick, 1996), “measurement-driven instruction” (popham, 1987) or “curricular alignment” (madaus, 1988). various labels are attached to the concept of exam influence in the field of language testing and teaching too. terms like “backwash” (hughes, 1989), “washback” (alderson one addresses the participants attitude (11), and four address the differences among participants (12-15). in baileys view, of these hypotheses, six of these hypotheses (1,3,4,7,9 11) address influence of test on teaching; six(2,5,6,8,10,11) are related to influence of test on learning and the rest four (12,13,14,15) are about the extent and scope of washback. alderson and walls intention is not to argue for or again