The Experimental Study On Task-based Nursing English Teaching In Higher Vocational College

In recent years, the vocational nursing education has developed rapidly. Different fromthe medical universities, the objective of higher vocational college is practicality andapplication. With the deepening of globalization and great shortage of nurses throughout theworld, the demand for composite talents with good knowledge of both nursing and Englishhas increased greatly. Unfortunately, the traditional teaching methods still occupy the leadingposition, and quality of nursing English is far from satisfaction. In order to meet therequirements of society and hospital, therefore, it is urgent to improve the nursing students’communicative competence.Task-based approach is new development of communicative language teaching. It startsfrom the learners’ needs and emphasizes “learning by doing and using”. The teaching methodrequires students to use target language to fulfill a series of communicative tasks that aredesigned from simple to complicated and at the same time to learn the language during thereal-world process of carrying out these tasks. There is no doubt that this meaning-focusedteaching method is a way out of nursing English teaching dilemma.Based on Willis’ TBA model and the current situation of higher vocational nursinglearning and teaching, the research mainly explores the application of task-based approach tonursing English teaching in order to enhance students’ interest, confidence and improve theEnglish level of nursing major, especially the comprehensive communicative competence.The subjects are80students in two classes of nursing department in Grade09fromCangzhou Medical College. Pre-test shows that the2classes are almost of the same Englishlevel. One class is set as experimental class (40students), and the other control class (40students). TBA is adopted in EC while traditional method in CC. Based on the pre-test,post-test and questionnaire, detailed analysis and discussion are conducted on effectiveness inTBA nursing English teaching.After one-semester experiment, according to the results of analysis, it is testified thatTBA is more effective to nursing English teaching than other traditional methods, and thefindings firmly proved that TBA can enhance students’ interests, confidence and improve thenursing English level and promote the student’s comprehensive English competency as well. Based on the major findings, the success of the experiment shows that it is worthy of learningfrom the TBA model for nursing English teaching in higher vocational college. But theintroduction of TBA does not mean it is exclusive. Besides, the TBA model in nursingEnglish teaching has the requirements not only for the teachers but also for the collegestudents.