A Study On Task-based Language Teaching Of Senior English Reading Class

In September 2002, the Education Ministry of China publis(?)e(?)ne Curriculum Standard for High School English (Tentative Edition). The Curriculum Standard points out that goal established at each level is described by what students can do, and TBLT (task-based language teaching) model is encouraged to be applied in English teaching. The reason that the standard attaches special importance to TBLT is that TBLT is helpful to realize the goals of teaching, that is, developing students' comprehensive language skill, making the learning process as a process of cumulating positive emotional attitude, active thinking and bold practicing, as well as improving conscious of culture crossing and being able to learn by themselves. However, in many high schools, the traditional 3P (Presentation, Practice, Production) teaching approach is still in place of foreign language teaching. In this teaching model, teacher is the center while students always act as passive receivers.This is a contrastive experimental research about the TBLT model and 3P model applications on English reading class in high schools in China. The purposes of the experimental research are: 1) to investigate the basic teaching model for applying TBLT to English reading class in high school; 2) to test the hypothesis that TBLT, as a teaching model of English reading class, is more effective than traditional 3P teaching approach.The paper is composed of six parts. The first part begins with a brief introduction on the background of the emergence of TBLT and the reasons for choosing such an experiment topic, as well as the theoretical and practical significance of the experiment research. The second part clarifies the origin of TBLT, and its basic conception and the previous research on TBLT at home and abroad by means of literature reviewing and summarization. At the same time, it emphasizes on the task definition and structure of TBLT, as well as its characteristics, purposes and procedures. The third part gives a general statement of the theory basis from psychology, three Hypotheses (Input,Output and Interaction) and Theory of Cognitive Approach. The fourth pah describes the design of the experiment, the procedure, and collects the data of the experiment. In order to test the hypothesis of this study, the author has carried out an experimental research that was lasting about 18 weeks in two parallel classes of Senior Grade One in No.1 Middle School of Baiyin. The fifth part analyses the experimental data in detail. Through quantity and quality analysis upon the data collected in the experimental procedure, upon the answers to the students' questionnaire, and upon the individual interviewing results, the experiment shows that the TBLT represents the model, in which learners could be the center, and it could develop a fully active learning pattern for learners who are interested in English learning. The sixth part offers a description on the findings of the experimental process. It points out the implication of the study; also it summarizes the limitations of the study and some problems to which special attention should be paid when practicing TBLT. In the end some recommendations for future research are offered, so that TBLT could be further improved and accomplished more in the future high school teaching.