A Research On Task-based Reading Teaching In Senior Middle Schools

Task-based language teaching ( TBLT) has attracted attention of experts and English teachers in China. It focuses on the concept of learner-centered and learning-centered. And TBLT emphasizes the importance of organizing a course around communicative tasks that learners need to do outside the classroom. This thesis, from the perspective of teaching, provides a brief analysis of present reading teaching only to find the traditional teaching method pays too much attention to language forms, separates the meaning from the discourse and neglects the cultivation of students' reading strategies and skills, while integrated with latest reading theories, many new reading teaching methods based on CLT (e.g. the schema reading model), are concerned with meaning but neglect the accumulation of accurate language form. As a result, both of them result in low efficiency with great effort in our English reading teaching.Based on the above analysis, the writer tries to apply the TBLT to the English reading teaching in senior middle schools, which is called task-based reading teaching (TBRT). And according to TBRT, three class teaching patterns come into being and are put forth.In the thesis, the writer explores the practical meaning of the multi-patterns applied in the reading teaching based on TBRT by action research, in the hope of making a meaningful try to improve the present reading teaching in senior middle schools.The thesis is divided into 3 parts.Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the task-based language teaching (TBLT) from the angle of the theory, including the definitions of the task, and the classifications of the tasks. And then an English reading teaching approach based on TBLT (TBRT) is proposed in this chapter. At the end of the chapter, the theoretical rational for TBLT is explored, which also offers the underlying theoretical rational for TBRT.Chapter 2 explores the task-based reading teaching (TBRT) from the angle of the practice. The writer starts this chapter with Willis' task-implementing model (namely, pre-task phase, task cycle, language focus ), which has been adopted in the task-based intensive reading in the thesis. Then the teacher' role and the learner's role are analyzed. The principles of designing reading tasks, types of reading tasks are also illustrated in this chapter. The writer puts forth three class teaching patterns for TBRT, namely, the pattern for task-based intensive reading, the pattern for task-based extensive reading and the pattern for task-based inquiring reading, and provides three samples for reference.Chapter 3 directs its attention to an action research on implementation of TBRT approach in the classroom. The action research "consists of a number of phases which often recur in cycles: Planning, Action, Observation, Reflection" (Richards and Lockhart's words(1994:12) )In order to explore the practical meaning of the study, the writer conducts an action research in a class of Senior III in Changlian Middle School. The research lasts ten weeks, and the action report is made based on the data — learner interviews, observations, learners' and teachers' reading logs. In order to testify the hypothesis that task-based reading teaching is more efficient in improving students' reading ability than other current reading teachings, the writer has the other class, taught by herself, as the contrasting class, and then analyzes the scores of the reading parts of the two English exams taken before and after the action research between the experimental class and the contrasting class. The result of the experiment shows that task-based reading teaching (TBRT) is beneficial to students' reading ability and is a workable and efficient way to teach reading in senior middle schools.The last part of the thesis draws a conclusion to the research. Implications as well as limitations are discussed here, and also suggestions for further studies are given too.