Research On Implementing Task-based Teaching Of College English Listening

With the development of the society, there are more and more demanding requirements for college students' English communicative competence. However, with the traditional teaching model which is characterized by playing tape, listening to aural texts, doing exercises, checking the answers, students' listening ability is far from being satisfactory. Therefore how to improve English listening teaching in college and help students enhance their listening ability becomes a public concern.TBLT (Task-based Language Teaching) was evolved from CLT (communicative language teaching) and slowly emerged since the 1980s, which emphasizes "learning by doing" and offers students an opportunity to make language in the classroom meaningful therefore memorable. The primary focus of classroom activity is the task and language is the instrument which students use to complete it. Therefore, TBLT can be applied to developing college students' communicative abilities of using a language, particularly in improving students' listening abilities through learning activities which are designed to engage them in the authentic, practical and functional use of language for meaningful purposes.I conducted an experiment to investigate whether TBLT was more effective than the traditional model in College English listening class. Two classes of freshmen who came from Nanjing University of Technology were involved in the experiment. One class was designed as the experiment class which received task-based teaching, the other as the control class which was treated with the conventional method. The research lasted for 16 weeks and listening comprehension tests as well as questionnaires were administrated both at the beginning and at the end of the semester to collect data. The statistical analysis of the data showed that although the two classes started almost at the same level of listening proficiency and they had similar interest, attitude and self-confidence in English listening at the beginning of the semester, the experiment class outperformed the control class both on language proficiency and on their interest, attitude and self-confidence in English listening at the end of the semester. Thus TBLT is proved to be effective in improving listening proficiency and it also arouses college students' interest in English learning and influences their attitude towards English learning and then promotes their self-confidence.