Application Of Task-Based Approach To The Teaching Of Business Communication Course

Task-based approach has been widely adopted since the 1980's, and it is also one of the approaches, which focuses on learning process. It focuses on the concept of learner-centered and learning-centered. And Task-based approach (TBA) emphasizes the importance of organizing a course by completing various communicative tasks. Since Prabhu's application of CLT in Bangalore, many scholars and experts, David Nunan, Jane Wills, Peter Skehan, have been applying and studying this teaching approach. In China, New English Curriculum firstly advocates TBA, emphasizing learning process, stimulating students'learning interests, and helping students to be confident in learning. TBA has been gradually advocated in colleges and universities. Both Chinese and western scholars have done much study on TBA. However, in general, Chinese scholars'have applied TBA to English courses as well as other major teaching in college. Few scholars apply TBA to Business Communication course.In this study, the author studies many theories on TBA and its application in English teaching. Based on the theories on TBA and its application in English teaching, the author tries to apply the TBA to the Business Communication teaching in International Education Exchange Department (IEED) of Xingtai University for a whole semester. This study employs pre-test, post-test, interview and questionnaire. The study uses analytical software Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) version 11.5 to answer the following questions: 1. Whether TBA is effective in changing students'attitude? 2. Whether TBA is effective in motivating students'leaning interest? 3. Whether TBA is effective in improving students'communicative competency? 4. Compared with PPP, whether TBA is preferred? Two natural classes of second-grade students of IEED were selected, with one class as the experimental class (34 students) and the other as the controlled class (31 students). All of the selected students entered the university in 2006. The experiment of this study consists of two parts: 1. Contrast of the results between the experimental class and the controlled class: TBA was applied to the experimental class, and the teacher-centered approach PPP was applied to the controlled class. A questionnaire is also given to the students in the experimental class to collect the data. The results of this experiment shows as follows: TBA can help to improve the students'communication skills; fulfilling this approach can arouse the students'interest in the course learning and influence their attitude towards major subject learning and then promote their self-confidence. And TBA is more efficient in improving students'communicative ability than other traditional teaching methods.Based on the results of the experiment, this study makes a conclusion of the advantages of TBA, and proposes some questions that might occur in TBA class.