An Application Of The Task-Based Approach To Vocabularies Teaching In College

As we all know that English education has obtained a lot of attention and concerns, especially in foreign countries, such as China, Singapore, Japan and India. The basic element of learning English is the vocabulary. Many linguists and language educationists consider that the vocabulary is the critical unit of language teaching. Although they think vocabulary is very important, the students regard the vocabulary learning is the most difficult part of learning a foreign language. Furthermore, the students get used to memorizing the new words in a repeated way. They spend a lot of time and energy on vocabulary, but they gain a limited size of vocabulary. When they communicate with other people, they couldn't speak out any words and feel embarrassed. As to college students, they have learned English for more than six years. When we talk about how to learn vocabulary, they also feel confused. They make a complaint that they have a limited size of vocabulary and the low ability to use the language in real communication.The author finds many theories about how to improve the skill of vocabulary, and also makes some experiments about memorizing vocabulary. Therefore, the author summarize that Task-based Approach (TBA) can not only improve their communicative ability, but also extend the students'vocabulary size.Communicative method is an effective way to learn English. TBA is the development of it, and follows Prabhu's Banglore Project. It's the mixture of teaching aim and activities. At present, the emphasis of TBA is"learning by doing"and is very popular in China.In order to prove TBA approach is whether an effective way to learn vocabulary, the author guides a treatment in two classes, one is named the experimental group under the TBA approach, and the other is the control group with traditional teaching. This experiment lasts eighteen weeks. We also solve the data from the tests and a questionnaire in t-test. After the experiment, the author finds a obvious difference between the two groups. The experiment group gets more acquisition of vocabulary than the control group. Most students receive TBA approach and are benefit from this approach, such as they are optimistic to take part in classroom activities; they find it is easy to memorize vocabulary. TBA approach stimulates the students'interest of learning English in spare time.Therefore, TBA approach can help students learn English easily. The students'independent learning ability has strengthened.