Tasks And Task-based Language Learning: Theory And Practice

With the economic globalization and the rapid development of science and technology, English teaching as a main channel through which English learners have access to the mastery of English is paid much attention to than ever before. However, affected by the testorientated education, the main current problem in English teaching in senior high schools in China is that most teachers have laid more emphasis on language knowledge teaching than the training of students' comprehensive abilities of using a foreign language. They just submerge in analyzing sentence structures and ignore the fostering of students' linguistic competence.Moreover, some teachers of English are greatly influenced by traditional language teaching methods which overlook an important aspect of language teaching-the teaching of the use of the language. Consequently, the function-notional textbook is taught in the way of traditional language teaching.As a result, some students have learned English for several years, yet they still can't communicate with each other in English, not even to say to communicate with native English speakers. This kind of phenomenon cannot meet with the demand of the development of education in our country. In order to remedy this state of affairs, China's New Revised Curriculum for Middle Schools explicitly stipulates that Task-based Language Teaching /Learning (TBL or TBLT) approach should be advocated to develop students' comprehensive abilities of using a language. The emphasis on TBL is found not only in China but also in some other countries and regions, such as the USA, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and so on.TBL aims at providing opportunities for the learners to experiment with and explore both spoken and written language through learning activities which are designed to engage learners in the authentic, practical and functional use of language for meaningful purposes.In addition to a brief introduction and a conclusion, this thesis iscomposed of four parts:Part I provides a general survey of senior high school English teaching in China. It covers the general situation and the problems found in English language teaching in senior high schools.Part II presents some general theories related to tasks and TBL, including the definitions and characteristics of tasks, components of a task, theoretical basis , features of TBL and so on.Part III is focused on the designing of tasks and the principles, authenticity principle, form-function, task dependency and learning by doing principle.Part IV discusses the application of TBL in senior high schools. A study of TBL was conducted in an experimental dass and feedback information was sought by means of a questionnaire employed to the experimental class. By analyzing and comparing the answers to the questionnaire, implications of TBL to foreign language teaching in senior high schools were collected.