Application Of Task-Based Approach To English Listening Teaching For Non-English Majors In Vocational Colleges

English has long been recognized as an important course in vocational colleges and therefore great importance has been attached to it. Nevertheless, owing to the bad influence of the examination-oriented educational system and the uneven English levels of the students, the English teaching, especially the listening teaching is time-consuming and inefficient in vocational colleges. Listening teachers in vocational colleges still pursue the traditional way of listening teaching: play the tape recorder; do the exercises; check the answers. According to Sheerin(1987), this traditional listening teaching is not teaching listening, but testing listening. The result is that students may gradually lose interest in listening and hence their listening level can barely be improved effectively.English Syllabus for students in colleges and universities (2000) advocates the task-based approach. Starting with students'experience, interest, and their cognition, this approach can make the communicative process meaningful by means of integrating all listening skills and designing different meaningful tasks. Therefore, task-based approach focuses on the learning process, which arouses students'internal motivation. Under the guidance of their teachers, students can achieve their objective and enjoy success by perceiving, experiencing, practicing, participating and cooperating.Through the analysis of task-based approach and the problems existing in present English listening teaching in vocational colleges, the author attempts to apply task-based approach to listening teaching in vocational colleges. A 21-week experimental research was carried out in Zibo Normal College in which the author teaches to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of task-based approach in English listening teaching in vocational colleges.In this research, two questions are put forward: 11. Which approach will effectively promote students'English listening proficiency, task-based approach or traditional teaching approach in vocational colleges?2. Which approach will effectively arouse student'interest and stir up their motivation in English listening teaching and learning, task-based approach or traditional teaching approach in vocational colleges?The subjects involved in this research were the sophomores of Cartoon Design in the Art Department in Zibo Normal College, Zibo city. The total 107 students were selected from two natural classes which the author taught. They were divided into two groups: one was the experimental class, including 53 students in class one; the other was the control class, including 54 students in class three.They had the same courses and used the same textbook. However, different teaching approaches were conducted in these two classes. The control class was instructed with the traditional teaching approach which is characterized by the usual pattern of"playing tape-doing exercises-checking answers". While in the experimental class, the task-based approach based on Willis'and Skehan's model was adopted, which was carried out according to three stages: pre-listening stage, during-listening stage, and post-listening stage. To avoid influencing the result of the experiment, the students were not informed that they were engaged in an experiment.The instruments in this research involve two questionnaires, two tests and observations. The two questionnaires which were carried out before and after the experiment respectively were designed to know students'interest in and attitudes towards English listening teaching and learning. The two tests, including pre-test and post-test were conducted before and after the experiment respectively, aiming at make out which approach (traditional teaching approach or task-based approach) can effectively promote students'English listening proficiency and stimulate their learning interest and motivation. All the data were put into SPSS to be processed. Based on the statistical analysis, the following major finding were obtained: 1.task-based approach improves students'English listening proficiency and comprehensive English competence more effectively than the traditional approach; 2. task-based approach has a more positive and significant effect on students'interest in English listening teaching and learning than the traditional approach. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that task-based approach is feasible and effective in English listening teaching in vocational colleges.This research provides some basic information as well as some clues for future scientific research in this field. Nevertheless, as a short-term experimental research based on a small-scale, it has some limitations unavoidably. Based on the research, the author provides some suggestions for English listening teaching, hoping that her research can be of some value to future study in this field.