Factors In The Implementation Of Task-based Teaching For English Classrooms In High Schools

The strong criticism of the examination-oriented education calls for the reform on the English Teaching in China. The new ECS (English Curriculum Standards) for high schools proposes the mode of task-based teaching and the learning by means of experience, practice, participation, communication and cooperation. As one of the most popular language teaching approaches in the world nowadays, task-based instruction (TBI) has been widely advocated to improve the English teaching in China. A variety of textbooks are compiled according to the task-based principle.This relatively new teaching methodology, evolved from CLT (communicative language teaching), emphasizes "learning by doing" and provides learners with opportunities to make language in the classroom meaningful. The primary focus of classroom activity is the task, serving the means of facilitating the development of learners' communicative ability through the processes in which language is used as the tool to complete the task.With solid theoretical ground and great advantages, TBI shows great attraction to syllabus designers, language teachers and also language learners. Yet TBI has been developed in the ESL (English as a second language) context. Can it be indiscriminately applied to the EFL (English as a foreign language) classrooms in China? In fact, some researchers and English teachers still fail to understand TBI thoroughly; on the other hand, foreign language learning bears some distinguished characteristics different from SLA (second language acquisition). Consequently, the current situation of the implementation of TBI arouses the present author's attention. Much of the research at home on TBI focuses on how to implement TBI in Chinese English classrooms, however, how teachers actually implement TBI does not receive sufficient attention. Based on the data of the four high school English classes collected by the STEPSS (Standards for Teachers of English in Primary and Secondary Schools) project, this thesis aims to provide a delineation of the four teachers' implementation of TBI in their classrooms and probe into the factors affecting its implementation in EFL classroom context. Therefore, there are two research questions:1. What is the current situation of the implementation of TBI in high schools?2. What factors affect the implementation of TBI?Through data analysis and discussion, this study presents the current situation of TBI in high schools and addresses the following six issues that affect the implementation of TBI: teacher qualification; opportunities of improvement in TBI for teachers; time available for task-based teaching; teacher preparation and resources; the language proficiency of the students and students' attitudes toward TBI. The complex interplay between these factors influences the extent of implementation of task-based teaching in the classroom.The findings generated from the current study shed light on teacher training programmes and the designing and implementing of communicative tasks in EFL classroom context in China.