Task-based Language Teaching In English Reading Classes

Task-based Language Teaching(TBLT)is one of the most important language teaching approaches that are brought forward by foreign language investigators through practical research in the1980s. TBLT advocates that the tasks of language learning are activities in which students work purposefully towards an objective or the communicative process in getting to concrete objective. According to the particular communicative objectives and language items, teachers design various and practical activities for students to complete the tasks through which students learn and master the language naturally and automatically. Therefore, TBLT is an effective language teaching approach to foster students' communicative competence. TBLT focuses on learning in using and learning for using language.Chinese vocational college students are a special group of students, who are different from the middle school students and the ordinary university students. They are required to become practical workers instead of academic ones. In the aspect of English study, the Ministry of Education emphasizes that English teachers should teach the essential English knowledge and the basic skills to the vocational college students; in the meantime, the teachers should foster their overall abilities of using English. It is well-known that reading ability is one of the most important abilities in English learning, and it also makes a large portion of the scoring in various examinations. Therefore, English reading teaching is always one of the most important factors in all kinds of English teaching. Although great care has been put on it, the reading abilities of vocational college students are still very poor. The New Curriculum Standards advocates for the first time in the year 2001 that TBLT should be employed in class so as to foster students' comprehensive abilities in using language. Vocational college English teaching is regarded as the continuum of middle school English teaching, should TBLT be adopted or not? The author of this thesis attempts to apply TBLT to the vocational college English reading teaching to see whether TBLT is also practical and useful for vocational college English teaching.The author fully uses TBLT in her daily reading teaching. As the result of it, the students master proper ways of English learning, increase their interest in English learning, and make rapid progress in their English learning, and also became very confident in English learning. The successful application of TBLT in vocational colleges'reading classes proves that TBLT is a very practical and effective teaching approach for the vocational college students.