A Study Of TBLT Based On Multimedia-Network In Junior English Teaching And Learning

It has been the actual situation for long that English teaching in China's middle schoolclassrooms only overstresses giving of the language knowledge and overlooks the cultivationof the students' overall abilities of using the language in living and so as only to produce muteEnglish learners with lower abilities accompanied by high scores. In the middle of the 1980s,an official survey in 15 cities and provinces revealed that middle school students found it hardto use the English they had learned for communication. One key reason was that the traditionalapproach to language teaching passed down from the 1930s still dominated middle schoolclassroom teaching. Most of class hours were spent with the teacher lecturing and the studentswatching and listening in the traditional approach to teaching. In such an environment thestudents passively learn English without ideal results, which has led to the incompletedevelopment of the students in their English learning. Students, although were not bad inwritten examination, couldn't communicate with English native speakers after several years'English learning in junior middle school.In recent years, a mighty curriculum reform in compulsory education is being carried outin China. Of course, English subject is not an exception. The New English CurriculumStandard highly advocates the use of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), in whichteachers involve the students' active participation in the task performance so as to help themlearn English through doing things such as thinking, discussing, cooperating andcommunicating and so on.This thesis first explores the theoretical foundations of both TBLT and CALLenvironment, and discusses with guidance of this theory and the principles of setting up TBLTbased on Multimedia-Network for English Language in Junior Middle School classrooms withcare of the real situation of English Teaching in China. In the thesis the author has expatiatedin detail the basic ideas, purposes, specified contents and procedures of implementing thismodel in English classes and has summarized the case researches conducted in the classes andconcluded that this model is feasible and effective in Junior Middle School Englishclassrooms.Under TBLT based on Multimedia-Network, learners are the masters of their learning,while the teacher is a helper, a tutor, who can and only can create an appropriate condition forlanguage learning. Meanwhile, learners' motivation and interest are stimulated, and thecognitive ability is developed. All this will be the real wealth for their further development.This thesis falls into six chapters.Chapter 1 makes a brief introduction about the problems of English teaching in thetraditional classroom and illustrates the purpose of the paper.Chapter 2 gives a brief description about the history of TEFL and introduces sometheories related to the language teaching and language learning and acquisition. Theframework and the principle of task-based approach are also described in details.Chapter 3 gives a brief description about the history of CALL. Social Constructivism ismainly discussed. The basic elements of constructivism and constructivist instruction establishthe framework of constructivist teaching and learning adopted in this research. And itdemonstrates the feasibility of CALL, such as the Internet, the Multimedia, software, etc. Thisprovides the substantial foundations for teachers to apply computer technology and on-lineresources.Chapter 4 concerns the factors under the investigation. Research method and teachers andstudents under the investigation, questionnaires in the research are reported in this chapter. Itpresents a sample for task-based approach in Multimedia-Network classroom languageteaching. In the presentation, the whole teaching process is recorded and analyzed. In thischapter, an assessment is made for the sample to support the task-based language teaching.Chapter 5 focuses on the findings and discussions of the experiment.Chapter 6 makes a conclusion about TBLT based on Multimedia-Network and suggeststhat teachers should keep balance between meaning-focus and form-focus when adoptingTBLT in their teaching,and points out TBLT based on Multimedia-Network may have somelimitations.