An Investigation On The Use Of Task Section In Advance With English For Senior High School Students

Advance with English, designed on basis of The English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School (draft), is widely used in Jiangsu province. As a creative part of Advance with English, the task section is considered as a reflection of teaching concepts and principles in the Standard (2003). It provides learners'w h tasks to practice their English, so as to improve their comprehensive English skills. In order to find out pros and cons of the task section, this thesis attempts to investigate the use of task section in ways of documents, comparative analysis, questionnaire and interview.The author insists that both teachers and students enjoy the well-organized structure, various topics and abundant activities of task section, and they all agree that this section is designed with the guidance of Standard (2003). However, the shortcomings of this section cannot be neglected. Frequency of language points in this section is not sufficient, operability of tasks need to be evaluated and improved, meanwhile, subjective teaching environment and teachers'qualities should be taken into account. Moreover, both teachers and students are still influenced by traditional exam-oriented teaching concepts; most of them ignore the comprehensive abilities'building with this section.Therefore, the author believes editors should know well users'needs, and to edit this section in the interest of users. Then they can supply enough materials, which are connected to students'real life with proper instructions and guidance for teachers. Meanwhile, they should both consider the inner-structure of the task section, and take into account the inter-structure of each section in the unit. Besides, it is suggested in this thesis that English teachers should change their thoughts, and further learn and understand the concepts and principles in the Standard (2003). They need to improve their qualities to meet the demands of teaching innovation, and to change their roles in class. Besides combining summative evaluation with formative evaluation, they also need to adjust the content and arrangement of this section properly. In terms of how these suggestions can be carried out in practice, a sample case is given here to provide explanations.