An Experimental Application Of The Task-Based Learning Approach In The Course Of "Survey Of English-Speaking Countries"

The Task-Based Learning Approach (TBL) is a type of foreign language teaching model which emerged in the 1980s. As a further development of the communicative language teaching method (CLT), TBL approach embeds the principle of "learning by doing" and emphasizes tasks as the center in the language teaching classroom. In TBL approach, the teacher designs and selects a series of communicative tasks according to the teaching contents and the learners' current situation, and engages the learners in comprehending, manipulating and interacting in the target language by accomplishing meaning-focused activities. Thus, the learners' interlanguage system is assumed to be stretched and language development can be driven forward.The New National English Curriculum (2001) highly advocates the TBL approach and the use of communicative tasks in English classroom teaching. Up till now, the task-based instruction has been widely employed in the skill courses (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing) and proved effective. However, the application of TBL approach in content courses of English, (for example, "Survey of English-Speaking Countries") is rare.This thesis attempts to explore the application of task-based instruction in "Survey of English-Speaking Countries" (SESC). To be more specific, this study will apply the framework for TBL approach in the teaching of SESC to examine the feasibility of TBL approach in teaching content courses. A two-month comparative experiment was conducted in two English major classes in the Open College of the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies to test whether TBL approach is effective or not in the teaching of SESC. The two classes are randomly designated as the control class (CC), using the traditional PPP method, and the experimental class (EC), adopting the TBL approach.A combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses is used based on the data collected from the pre- and post-experimental questionnaires, the mid- and post-experimental interviews, as well as the pre- and post-tests. Both Paired Samples t-test and Independent Samples t-test are used. After analyzing the results of the experiment, the author finds that the students in the experimental class had better performance than those in the control class. Moreover, after the experiment, they manifested better learning behavior and their learning confidence was greatly improved. The results of the experiment indicate that TBL approach is superior to the traditional classroom English teaching model in the teaching of SESC. Meanwhile, the author also points out the theoretical and pedagogical implications in the practice of the task-based approach to the teaching of content courses, and gives some tentative suggestions for further study in this field.The findings and discussions in the present study are expected to shed light on the feasibility of TBL approach in content course instruction in the Chinese context.