Can Exams Change How and What Teachers Teach? Investigating the Washback Effect of a University English Language Proficiency Test in the Turkish Context

Year 2018, , 155 - 176, 26.09.2018

Asli Lidice Gokturk Saglam

https://doi.org/10.32601/ejal.464094

Cited By: 4

Abstract

Learning a foreign language can be
frustrating for some people and very enjoyable for some others. Emotions are
one of the most important factors in the use of English as a foreign language
located in the center of attention of many researchers. One of the
emotion-inducing contexts for learning English as a foreign language can be the
setting of an imagined community. Our focus in this study was on the emergence
of emotions, both positive and negative, of three groups of six university
students engaged in an English-speaking literature criticism TV program as an
imagined community. The program encompassed a specific day to discuss a fiction
and a final report of the program specified for publication in one of the
well-established literary bulletins. Each member constructed a specific
imagined identity in each group as critics, photographers, reporters, and
presenters competing with each other for the final selection of the best
critique and presentation on the discussion day as well as the publication of
the best report. A triangulation of data was gathered including an interview,
observation, an open-ended questionnaire as well as personal journals which
were qualitatively analyzed. The results showed the emergence of enjoyment
resulting from the constructed imagined identities in the classroom as well as
facilitative negative emotions such as anxiety leading to the consolidation of
the participants’ imagined affiliations.

Keywords

Integrated language proficiency test, theme-based language proficiency test, washback effect, washback on teaching

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