Task-based Teaching Approach Applied In The Distance Chinese Learning Environment

In this paper, it has been proposed that we should make some changes to the Chinese teaching concept and explore a new method for the overseas students in order to meet the needs of the Chinese International Promotion. Especially in the special teaching environment—distance learning, in the Confucius Institute of the University of Kansas,such needs seem to be more urgent. According to the features of the distance learning, such as inflexible teaching mode, uncontrolled class management and weak Chinese atmosphere, and on the basis of the analysis of the merits of the task-based teaching approach, that is it can arouse students' interests in self-study, We should make use of the approach to teach Chinese. On the basis of the research of the former scholars and combined with the teaching experience, the paper comes up a series of principles of the task design, including authentic, primary in meaning, continuous, cooperate, student-centered, personal experience oriented, interesting, operational. Guided by these principles, the author selects 5 most suitable and frequently used task types for the novice Chinese learners:information-gap, opinion-gap, recalling, prediction, listing. It's said that as long as such task types are combined with the real life situations, and adopting the intersting ways, such as playing games, interviewing and role-playing, they can stimulate the students to communicate in the target language. Besides, the author drawed on the theory of tasked-based teaching procedure, designed a more specific one and ecplained by some teaching cases. At the end of the thesis, the author made a comparison between the result of the traditional teaching method and the task-based teaching approach in the way of a teaching experiment.