Teaching English to the Test: Why Does Negative Washback Exist within Secondary Education in Bangladesh?

This article reports on a study that was carried out to explore the factors that contribute to a negative washback effect on English language teaching (ELT) in secondary schools in Bangladesh. Twelve secondary school teachers were interviewed to understand their perspectives on which factors influenced their pedagogical choices. The interview data were supplemented with secondary material, including official documents, media resources, and NGO (non-government organisation) reports. Drawing on a body of washback research and the empirical data, we constructed the basis for the argument that test-external socio-political and contextual factors may play a substantial role in shaping the nature of washback. It is suggested that emphasising a testing-teaching causal relationship may be overly simplistic, as language teaching may be affected not only by assessment factors but also by a complex of social-psychological, political, economic, and data-driven accountability factors in which testing and teaching are embedded. These insights have implications for scholars in language testing and assessment, policy makers, program designers, and managers in contexts where language tests are believed to affect language instruction negatively.