Effects Of TBLT On Vocational College English Intensive Reading Class

After about two decades of rapid development, Higher Vocational Education (HVE) has become a significant part of Higher education in China. Vocational Colleges are faced with a problem of how to carry out teaching reform and foster more talents to meet the need of social development. Since 1980's, studies on Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) have been carried out in China's English teaching. However, fewer studies have implemented TBLT in Higher Vocational Colleges especially on the aspect of emphasizing its effects.With the aim of exploring the effects of TBLT used in Higher Vocational colleges, an experimental study was carried out in this thesis. Two natural classes (108 students) from the same college were divided into Experimental Group (EG) and Control Group (CG) and were taught with TBLT and traditional teaching method respectively. The whole experimental study lasted for eight weeks and the two-group students took part in the pre-test and post-test. And then a questionnaire was given to Experimental Group after the post-test. All the results from the two tests and questionnaire were analyzed in this thesis and they showed that TBLT can fully arouse the students'initiative in English learning although they have weak foundation in English. TBLT can give the students many chances to learn by doing and at the same time enhance their confidence and enthusiasm, encourage independent thought and ability of working in teams. These qualities are very important in their future social life. After carrying this study, the researcher found that students had no difficulties in fulfilling the tasks which needed lower requirement of their comprehensive language abilities. While in fulfilling the harder ones they needed the help from the teacher. Therefore, improving their all around abilities of application becomes one of the important duties. The researcher also found that TBLT has a relative higher expectation to teachers' competence, especially in the section of task-design. Teachers should consider both the real abilities of the students and the teaching goals. So for teachers, designing good tasks is not an easy job.Through this experimental study, the thesis testified that compared with traditional teaching method TBLT has a comparative advantage. During the post-test which was held after the implementing TBLT, students got higher marks than pre-test. Teachers should be well aware of the students' aptitudes and try to use different kinds of teaching methods to promote the student's English language proficiency.