Using Oral Tasks As An Integrative Approach To Improving Non-English Major's English Proficiency

Since 1980's, task-based teaching approach (TBTA) rooted in humanism and experiential philosophy of education has received increasing cognition in EFL classroom. This approach takes student's interest, cognitive style and personal experiences as the departure point for deciding how to organize the learning process. As a supplement to the Grammar-translation which assumed that second language learning was a linear process (phonology, vocabulary, grammar and paragraph) and that learners learn one item at a time, TBTA emphasizing communicative perspective provides students opportunities to practice reading, speaking, listening and writing simultaneously.Although there has been a growing interest in the notion of task-based approaches to language teaching and there is a growing body of international research in relation to task usage in particular, however, there are very few detailed empirical studies of task design and use in the Chinese language teaching context, and none that systematically discuss the effectiveness of oral tasks in improving students' overall language proficiency. Therefore, the present research serves to discover whether oral tasks can be an effective integrative approach to enhancing students' language proficiency as well as learning motivation and attitude in the context of Chinese College English teaching classroom. The research question is: How do oral tasks as an integrative approach improve students' language proficiency? Using this question as the base for the study, I am to explore:1. Are oral tasks effective in promoting students' language learning?2. If it is effective, in what ways?3. What are the implications for TBTA application in EFL classroom? After one year's investigation, three major findings are obtained:1. Integrating oral tasks into the classroom syllabus, TBTA satisfies the theoretical model of language acquisition "input, output and interaction hypothesis". Applied to pedagogical value, oral tasks were proved effective in integrating four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to acquire comprehensible input, produce modified output and ultimately achieve negotiated interaction.2. TBTA plays an important role in motivating students to read more, speak more and a...