Task-based Language Teaching And Its Application In Senior English Reading Classes

Task-based language teaching (hereinafter called TBLT) was originally developed by Prabhu in Bangladore, southern India since the 1980s to challenge the traditional itemized form-based methodology. TBLT originates from CLT(Communicative Language Teaching) . It's a combination of funtional-notionalist, cognitivism, language acquisition theory and humanism, etc. TBLT is a meaning-focused teaching method, aiming at fulfilling language communicative tasks. TBLT has become a heated topic in second language acquisition and EFL teaching. It is a very popular teaching method in many parts of the world, such as America, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong etc. They all brought forward task-based teaching syllabus. TBLT also arouses great interests in our country.In the past 20 years and over, many experts in applied linguistics not only do research into TBLT in theory but also explore it in practice. A lot of volumes of literatures have come into being due to their contribution to this field of linguistics. But in the present English teaching circles, many Chinese English teachers do not know much about it for lack of training. They are still employing the traditional way of teaching in reading classes, which does not benefit the students and is not in agreement with the New National Criterion for English Course. Therefore, the author argues that it is of great importance to elaborate on task-based approach to make sure that more English teachers know about it and integrate it into their English teaching. This present thesis introduces a lot of literatures concerning TBLT, makes an analysis of what is drawn from the experiment, and designs a questionnaire to have feedback of the implementation of task-based approach in the English reading class in the middle school.At the very beginning of the thesis, the author lists different definitions of "task" by the experts. On the basis of these, the author summaries his own view. Then, a lot of studies into the theoretical foundation of task-based approach, its guiding principles, task selection are also introduced to guarantee that the teachers in the middle school can have a comprehensive knowledge of TBLT. The emphasis of this thesis is on the implementation of TBLT in the reading classes in Senior One. (SEFC, 2003) The author explores its teaching model and gives some detailed examples, hoping to give some guidance to the teachers in the middle school.Although TBLT is an excellent teaching method, it still has its limitations. At the end of the thesis, the author gives his suggestions and experience of implementing TBLT, which needs further development.