Application Of Task-Based Language Teaching To English Listening Teaching In Rural Junior Middle Schools

Listening is one of the four essential English learning skills(listening,speaking,reading and writing)and has gained wide attention in the research field.It is a skill that deserves special training,and it is also necessary for acquiring the target language.Furthermore,listening comprehension also plays a vital role during the process of English teaching,in which however the English listening teaching is still a weak link.The traditional teaching approaches which ignore the process but merely pay attention to the answers lead to the result of indistinctive teaching effects and gradual decrease of students' learning interest.Especially in English teaching in rural schools,majority of teachers and students take examination as the purpose so that they neglect ability of listening and speaking because of the influence of traditional examination-oriented education and the limitation of lack of teaching and research.Against this background,it is urgent for the teacher to adopt the effective teaching approach.Hence,the Task-based Language Teaching(TBLT)applied to English listening teaching is analyzed in this thesis,which applies TBLT to English listening teaching in rural junior middle schools.The research is implemented with the aim of solving the following two questions:(1)Can the task-based listening teaching enhance students' interest in listening learning and how?(2)Can the task-based listening teaching effectively improve students' listening ability and how?The author of this thesis conducted her study at Xiangshuihe Middle School which is a town junior high school in Fushan County.This study selected 60 students in Class 30 and Class 31 in Grade 2 as the research subjects.In Class 30 the TBLT was adopted,and the traditional teaching approach was adopted in Class 31.Through one semester's experiment teaching,questionnaires and interviews,it is found that the students have great interest in English listening class in the experimental class(Class 30),and the listening score has been greatly improved,while the control class(Class 31)has no obvious change.This shows thattask-based language teaching can greatly improve the students' interest and ability of English listening learning in rural junior high schools and can enhance students' confidence in learning English.However,because the number of students is limited and the training time for the students is not long,the result might not be applicable to all students.These problems need to be discussed and solved in the future teaching practice and research.