A Research On Task-Based Teaching In English Class Of Higher Vocational College

Researches on TBLT have become explosive issues in the currentsecond language acquisition and classroom research. Many appliedlinguists have made some deep theoretical and empirical studies onlearning tasks from different angles. The New English CurriculumStandard also highly advocates the use of Task-Based Teaching approachin which teachers involve the students, active participation in the taskperformance so as to help them learn English through doing things. Asurvey of some main periodicals and some university journals forlanguage teaching in China shows that the researches on TBLT mainlyfocus on primary and secondary school, partly involving university, butthere are few researches on TBLT in higher vocational college. Thisthesis aims to make a tentative study on the application of t-Task-BasedTeaching in higher vocational college.This thesis first deals with the definition, the theoretical basis andthe current studies of TBLT at home and abroad. Then, through analysingthe current situation of English teaching in higher vocational college andthe advantages of TBLT, the writer points out the necessity and feasibilityof the research It elaborates a teaching experiment in Changsha SocialWork College where 110 second-grade students from two intact classeswere involved. In order to explore the effects of task-based teaching onstudents' comprehensive language ability and on their learningachievements, the experimental class employed task-based language teaching while the controlled class stuck to the traditional 3P method. Theexperiment lasted a semester. Through a brief survey with 12 questionson their English learning, a sample lesson in the experimental class andsome data of two simulated Practical English Tests, we can find thatTBLT is more effective than the other formerly used teaching methods inhigher vocational college. Not only have the subjects of the experimentalclass made more growth in learning achievements but also theircomprehensive language ability has been improved. Finally the writergives some suggestions on the application of TBLT in higher vocationalcollege, including designing cooperative tasks for a big class, designingmeaningful tasks to promote active learning, designing different tasks forstudents at different levels in a class, using performance assessment forevaluating task results, and that teachers should pay close attention totheir self development. These suggestions aim at helping college Englishteachers to adopt task-based approach and guide students to participate inclassroom activities and enhance the efficiency of classroom instructions.The author hopes that this study can provide reference andsuggestions for foreign language teachers and language teachingpolicymakers and thus promote English teaching reform in highervocational college in China.