Importance Of Washback In Teaching And Learning

In education, assessment is considered as an essential part of the teaching and learning cycle. Testing is one type of assessment and plays an important in a successful curriculum and learning process. In fact, they can show strengths and weaknesses needed to improve. In addition, they are a powerful tool to assist in evaluating teaching effectiveness. In order to investigate the extent to which the test is useful, a language test must be developed in consideration of three elements consisting of a specific purpose, a particular group of test takers and a specific language use domain. According to Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) theory, there are six test qualities of useful tests including reliability, construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness,

It is also an important feature of language testing since it may have potential negative and positive impacts on individuals and the society and educational systems. There are two levels that impact of test use functions. A micro level is about the individuals who are affected by the particular use like teachers, test takers and administrators. On the contrary, a macro level refers to society or educational systems. When mentioning the notion of impact, an important aspect of impact is washback. According to Hughes (1989), washback enhances the effects of testing on teaching and learning. Similarly, washback can cause benifical or harmful effects upon different situations. Furthermore, washback is achieved through the processes of leaning, teaching and testing. Washback create many basic principles of language acquisition like intrinsic motivation, autonomy, self-confidence, etc. To students, washback helps them know their strengths and weaknesses in order to work further and achieve their goals. Therefore, it is possible to have positive or negative effects from washback depending on each situation. A test task with multiple choices is an example. Because of the test format, both teachers and students spend all time practicing the type of task and do not spending time on writing. Teachers specifically prepare students for particular exams. It is teaching to the test that creates the positive effect of

All these qualities have an effect on each other, so each quality cannot be evaluated individually and independently. Moreover, they will differ from each situation, so useful tests must be assessed based on specific language testing situations. Hence, to assure the general test usefulness, test designers should work hard to raise the highest levels of each single quality when developing a specific test without losing the balances among those six test