Research On The Application Of Task-based Approach To English Listening & Speaking Teaching At Vocational Colleges

Compared with other forms of education, Higher Vocational & Technical Education (HVTE) has a late start. However it has grown and developed at amazing speed since 1990s. It is playing more and more important role in the nurturing of practice-inclined talents in the sectors of production, technology, service and management. Hence it has drawn greater attention and been attached greater values. In the meantime, China's further opening-up in recent years has made a higher requirement for the English proficiency of vocational college students. Practicality-inclined objective of HVTE further defines the significance and value of communicative competence training. Unfortunately there is, to a large extent, a contradiction between this objective and the current teaching mode. The present vocational college English teaching , operating in the shadow of four-year college education mode, lays more stress on the study of lexical meaning, semantic features and syntax. Without tailoring English teaching practice to HVTE's characteristics, vocational college English teaching can hardly meet the market demand for practicality-inclined graduates. On the other hand, the difficulty in English listening and speaking seems to be the culprit for the low morale of English learning among vocational college students. How to improve vocational college English teaching methods to ensure a better classroom teaching effect has become priority for our English teachers. In order to improve the situation, more and more English teachers are exploring task-based approach. The author believes there is a great necessity and feasibility to apply task-based approach to English listening and speaking teaching at vocational colleges.Starting from the observation on the present situation of vocational college English teaching, this thesis points out the significance of the application of task-based approach to English listening and speaking teaching at vocational colleges. It explores how to implement this approach in a more effective way so as to improve the present situation of English listening and speaking teaching and hopefully to go further, the overall English teaching quality at vocational colleges. It is expected that this thesis can offer some valuable reference to the birth of better English teaching modes.This paper consists of six chapters as follows:Chapter One analyses the research value of this paper. With a brief introduction concerning current landscape of vocational college English teaching, This charpter points out the necessity and significance of exploring more effective teaching approaches for English listening and Speaking teaching at vocational colleges.Chapter Two provides theoretical rationale for TBA and makes a detailed study on the advantages of task-based approach over other English teaching approaches.Chapter Three gives a detailed account of the feasibility of application of task-based approach to English listening and speaking teaching at vocational colleges.Chapter Four presents us the outline of implementation of task-based approach in English listening and speaking teaching at vocational colleges and also the effective procedures.Chapter Five deals with the investigation on the current situation of TBA's application in vocational colleges. Based on the data analysis, some suggestions are put forward.Chapter Six is the conclusion of the thesis, which includes a brief summary of the whole paper and points out the limitations of this research. It winds up with some suggestion for further study in this area.