| In order to investigate the current situations of English coursebooks in higher vocational colleges, the practicality of TBA and the students'learning needs and the target needs of the society, this research conducts the following quantitative study and qualitative study:1) Questionnaires to 150 on-campus higher vocational college students involve their feedbacks and attitudes to TBA, their satisfactory degree on the coursebooks and their learning needs etc.2) Questionnaires to 40 higher vocational college graduates and 30 employers involve their feedbacks on practical English coursebooks and English teaching in college and the target needs of the society.3) Face-to-face interviews to 30 English teachers concern the teachers'attitudes to TBA and its practicality in higher vocational colleges and the difficulties in its implementation.Based on the research data, the major findings of the present study are summed up as follows:Firstly, the biggest problem existed in current English teaching in higher vocational colleges is the lack of authentic materials and the coursebooks are not practical and thus can't meet the learning needs of the students and the target needs of the society.Secondly, among the currently used state-compiled coursebooks, some have strong practicality but ignore systematic principle and don't follow the principle of proper sequence or stage and have poor consistency and large leaps and thus bring trouble to teaching and learning; some have poor practicality and thus can't meet the learning needs of the students and the target needs of the society.Thirdly, China's reform and opening-up policy provides a lot of opportunities for the graduates to work in the foreign-funded, joint-ventures and international companies and it's essential for the graduates to know how to communicate with foreigners in simple spoken and written English. Therefore, they're required to develop all-round language skills.Fourthly, there are still relatively few genuine task-based coursebooks on the market. With the promotion of TBA in higher vocational colleges, teachers are facing the challenge of adapting or redesigning the coursebooks which places a heavy burden on the teachers. According to the above findings, some suggestions are made as follows:1) Task-based coursebooks should focus on the fostering of students'communicative competence and authentic materials should be selected and proper simplification should be made.2) Much attention should be paid to"practical principle"and"communicative principle"and the communicative topics for daily life and daily work should be introduced according to the Basic Requirements for HVC English Course.3) The materials in the coursebooks should be designed in proper sequence and Bruner's spiral theory should be taken into account.4) Language"exercises"should be designed into communicative"tasks", emphasizing the fostering of students'communicative competence.This study is beneficial to the promotion of TBA in higher vocational colleges and is of practical use to the compilation of"Task-based"practical English coursebooks for higher vocational colleges. |
