An Application Of TBLT To The Intensive Reading For The Higher Vocational Colleges

During the past twenty years, the task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been gained enough attention among the foreign language researchers, syllabus designers, educators and language teachers. TBLT stresses holistic and realistic input and output, and the focus is on the students’learning, rather than on a set of discrete language points, and the tasks can contribute to whole-person development---not just linguistic development. The attention to students’ needs, interests and abilities means that the teachers should vary their teaching styles to take account of the different ways in which students learn. TBLT is a very flexible form of teaching and learning. It can not only cater for different learning styles but also allow teachers to focus on the meaning as well as forms. The attention to students’needs, abilities and interests offers opportunities for teachers to energize students’learning.In the thesis, according to the contrast of the teaching results in the experiment class (EC) and the control class (CC), the author manages to apply the TBLT approach to the art students’ intensive reading class in a vocational college, and explores the teaching effect of TBLT compared with the traditional3Ps approach. The study questions are briefly proposed as follows:1. Does TBLT approach have the feasibility for art students’intensive reading class in the higher vocational college?2. Can TBLT approach promote learners’comprehensive English proficiency more effectively, compared with the traditional3Ps approach,?3. Can TBLT approach motivate art students’ learning interest and produce a better teaching result?Quantitative research and qualitative research are both employed in the thesis in order to draw the scientific results. The experimental subjects, majoring in the decoration, are chosen from the vocational technical college of Northwest University, in Shaan Xi Province. Class one with forty students, as the experimental class, was implemented the teaching activities under the guidance of the TBLT approach, and cooperative learning or group discussion are used in the class. Class two, served as the control class, employs the traditional3Ps approach with focus on the language points and controlled practice, such as grammar, vocabulary, individual skills, drilling, repetition, dialogue reading, ect. Before the experiments, the author collected the English scores of College entrance examination in EC and CC as the pre-test scores and ensured that the English proficiency is relatively equal between two classes. After one term’s experiment, post-test was held between EC and CC in order to collect the results and made the comparison. Based on the test scores and the records of the interview or the classroom observation, the author analyzes the students’ performance in EC and finally draws the conclusion as expected that TBLT approach is suitable for the art students in the vocational technical college.After the empirical study, the author gets the answers of the questions. TBLT approach has the feasibilities in the intensive reading class with effective teaching results. Compared with the traditional3Ps approach, it can motivate students’English learning interest and improve their English proficiency. However, TBLT is not a perfect approach and some potential constraints exist that the teachers need to be aware of. For instance, the task design is a complicated process and evaluation is hard to operate after the task. To conclude, it is important to remember that an approach is more effective only when it is appropriate to the teaching context. Therefore, when a new method or approach emerge, it is unwise to simply cast away the traditional one and follow the new one. The best thing to do is to develop one’s own teaching methods based on the teaching context and integrates the merits of different methods to serve one’s teaching objectives and the needs of one’s students.