The Retroactive Effect of Assessment on the Teaching and Learning of Languages: The State of the Art

This article presents a state of the art review of the literature on the concept of "washback" in the context of language teaching. The concept, despite having been frequently used in the international educational literature & in Applied Linguistics, is not well understood as it does not seem to have been part of the research agenda for many years. After terminological & conceptual considerations, the article discusses recent empirical contributions, controversial aspects as well as those deserving more careful treatment in future research. 4 Figures, 78 References. Adapted from the source document