Task-based Language Teaching In High School EFL Writing Class-An Empirical Study

Writing,as an important skill of output,is an indispensable goal for EFL learning.In recent years,English writing is becoming more and more important,but English teachers find it quite difficult to make the students write correct sentences and form good passages.Improving writing skills only depends on mechanical training,and written passages are mere spoken English recorded.So how to improve students' writing ability effectively has become a new important research topic for English teachers.Task- based teaching method,popular since 1980s,has been brought into our country.A great deal of positive study has been applied in reading and speaking teaching,while little study has been done in writing.The purpose of the current paper is to bear testimony to the hypothesis that the task-based teaching method can be used in writing class effectively and it can improve students' learning interest and writing ability.The research method employed was designed to facilitate more effective writing ability by encouraging leamers to participate in task-based writing activities.In order to investigate the issue,the task-based writing experiment was conducted in No.125 Senior Middle School in Dong Cheng District of Beijing,with two contrast groups in Grade Two in the year 2006.The study attempted to validate the following research hypotheses:1) Students' interests and beliefs towards writing can be promoted more efficiently through Task-based Approach to teaching writing.2) Students' writing ability both in content and language can be improved more efficiently through the new approach.The researcher carried out the task-based approach to teaching writing in an experimental class.Data analysis was used in the research:two questionnaires related to writing attitudes and beliefs,the scores of eight compositions concerning content and language,the scores of pre-test paper and post-test paper.By analyzing the collected data,a conclusion was drawn that students can benefit from task-based writing activities.However,there are some limitations in this research,such as the small sample size,time limitation,the ways of prewriting training and prewriting activities themselves,so the conclusion drawn in this study still requires further investigation in future research.