Application Of Task-based Language Teaching To Teaching English Reading In Junior Middle School

There is no doubt that reading comprehension plays an important role injunior English teaching. New English Curriculum Standard states that the goalof English teaching is to develop students’ comprehensive ability to use thelanguage, in particular reading ability, So the basic demands of reading is forthe students to master the main idea after reading and then make animmediate reaction, analyze the purpose of the author, and apply moreeffective reading strategies. Hence, to improve students’ reading levels hasbeen one of the most important purposes in English reading teaching.After a survey about English reading teaching in Grade9in No.4MiddleSchool in Baotou City, the writer finds that teachers use the traditionalteaching methods, as a result, the students focus on taking notes and grammartranslation instead of reading for information. The teachers’ simple teachingmethods lead to students’ lack of interest in reading. This situation meansteachers have to adjust their methods to meet the new requirements.This paper has four parts. The first part is the introduction, whichdescribes the current situation of task-based language teaching in juniormiddle schools.By looking through the problems in teaching reading in juniormiddle schools, the writer finds that one of the obstacles is that teachers’application of traditional method only, featuring grammar explanation. Thus,it is necessary to design various practical tasks to raise the students’ interestsin reading and improve their reading competence. In the second part, thewriter elaborates the studies and relevant theories on task-based languageteaching. The third part is the experiment of applying task-based languageteaching method to reading teaching. Two classes of Grade9joined in theexperiment. One is the experimental class，the other is the controlled class.During the experiment, the author designed sorts of activities and tasks in the experiment class to improve the students’ interests. Tests and questionnaireswere used as research instruments. The hypothesis is that the students in theexperimental class can have more interests in reading and get good grades andthe result from the tests proved the hypothesis true. The fourth part isconclusions. Under the current educational system, task-based languageteaching has its own limitations, however, with better design and moredevotion, the application of TBLT in junior English reading class makesEnglish reading classes more interesting and it is a useful way to help studentsget better grades.