The Task-Based Approach And Its Application To Teaching English Vocabularies In Colleges

All of us know that "the primary function of language is for interaction andcommunication" (Richard and Rogers, 2000: 71). However, the current teachingmethods employed in college English teaching seem to lag behind the requirements,which are still teacher-centered and do not attach enough importance to theimprovement of students' communicative competence. Consequently, the studentscannot communicate effectively and appropriately in the unpredictable world outsideof the classroom.Vocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to languagelearners. Just as Virginia (1983:5) advocates "…communication stops when learnerslack the necessary words." Nowadays, in the context of college English teaching inChina, although a lot of time and energy is spent on learning and teachingvocabulary, the situation is far from being satisfactory (李岚清,1996). Studentsoften complain that learning vocabulary is the most difficult part in learning English.Unfortunately, the traditional approaches to teaching vocabulary are not as effectiveas expected. So the question of how to improve this situation and help students learnvocabulary more effectively is a serious issue, which obviously deserves study. This paper is an attempt to probe and solve this problem.The Task-Based Approach (TBA) is regarded as a broader development of thecommunicative approach. According to Nunan (1999:24), TBA is "an approach tothe design of language course in which the point of departure is not an ordered list oflinguistic items, but a collection of tasks." The emphasis of TBA is on learning bydoing. It gets learners to do things or to complete tasks by using target language, andgets an actual outcome by using English as a meaningful system and a useful tool. Inthe task-based classroom, tasks are placed at the center of the language course andlearners are given various tasks to complete. Transacting tasks in this way couldengage naturalistic acquisition mechanisms, cause the underlying interlanguagesystem to be stretched, and drive development forward. Various tasks provide thelearners with not only rich exposure to target language but also a range of languageuse opportunities. Thus an environment which best promotes natural languageacquisition is created. To sum up, TBA has evolved in response to a betterunderstanding of the way languages are learned.In western countries, TBA is very popular. Many linguists, scholars andeducators have advocated TBA and a large amount of research has been done toassess the effects of TBA in various classrooms with positive results. In China,although TBA has been advocated by the National Curriculum Standards of EnglishCourse published in 2001, it remains unfamiliar to most college English teachersand very little research has been conducted on college English vocabulary teaching(CEVT). The application of TBA to CEVT in this paper is an attempt that hopes toprovide some practical reference value for the reform of college English Teaching(CET). This paper puts focus on two important parts: a further study of theperspectives of TBA and the application of the TBA to teaching English vocabularies in colleges.The present paper consists of three chapters.The introduction reveals the reason why the author writes this paper.Chapter One presents the importance of vocabulary in language learning, andthen introduces the current situation of college English vocabulary teaching in Chinaand the most common methods dominating CEVT. Also, it makes an advocacy ofTBA in China.Chapter Two first gives a clear definition of task and task-based approach, andthen presents task types and goals in TBA. Moreover, both frameworks of Willis(1996:38; 2002:52-62) and Skehan (1996: 38-62) for TBA are discussed in a greatdetail.Chapter Three describes the application of TBA to the teaching of CollegeEnglish vocabulary with two illustrative examples: one is teaching college Englishvocabulary in context within TBA, the other is teaching vocabulary in chunksintegrating TBA. Then, some possible problems that may occur and thecorresponding suggestions are mentioned.The conclusion summarizes the significance of TBA and points out thepromising prospect of applying TBA to CEVT.