The Application Of Task-based Approach In College Oral English Teaching

The task-based approach (TBA), which is based upon a great deal of research done by foreign language teaching researchers, has been one of the most effective language teaching methods since the 1980s. The core of TBA is "learning by doing". TBA emphasizes the importance of organizing a course around communicative tasks that learners need to do outside the classroom, and facilities learners to do tasks required in language use.In China, many current books and articles have been written on the adoption of TBA in the teaching of reading or writing, yet few of them have a systematic study of the application of TBA to oral English teaching. What this thesis focuses on is the application of the task-based approach to oral English teaching in Colleges. The research methods of this thesis include literature review, empirical research and questionnaire.This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One is an introduction to the present research and its significance, and discusses the general level of students' oral English competence in China, drawing attention to the distressing ineffectiveness of oral English teaching today. Chapter Two presents a literature review of the application of traditional teaching methods in oral English teaching, while laying emphasis on a new teaching approach, task-based approach. This chapter also investigates domestic and international research on the theory of TBA. Chapter Three is the theoretical background in which the theory of constructivism is introduced, which has been one of very popular teaching and learning theories in western countries. Also, we present a constructivist model, with four elements that we consider to be the key elements of a constructivist learning process, i.e., the teacher, the individual, the task and the learning context. These four elements influence each other and form a dynamic equilibrium. Chapter Four applies TBA based on constructivism to oral English lessons. A sample lesson plan is given here. Chapter Five includes a description of the experimental hypotheses, procedures, analyses and discussions related to the findings of the experiment. Chapter six draws conclusions based on the experiment.The experiment on TBA under constructivism shows that this kind of teaching approach is effective in enhancing the students' oral English competence, arousing college students' interest and initiative in oral English learning, thus improving their comprehensive abilities in English learning.