An Observation And Analysis Of Factual Implementation Of Middle School Task-basedClassroom Teaching

Ten years have passed since task-based classroom instruction was explicitly advocated by "Curriculum Standard for English Teaching in Middle Schools"in China and much effort has been exerted to study and implement the so-called "task-based approach" in the past few years. However, even though so much research work has been done concerning the theories and experiments of task-based instructions, we are still not quite know to what degree our classroom instructions are task-based. That’s why this study aims to find out the realities and problems in the implementation of task-based approach in middle-school classroom teaching by means of the criteria thus formed. Based on the literature concerning the definition of the task, principles of task design and a task framework, the author attempts to discover the degree to which the TBLT Approach is actually implemented in middle school classroom teaching, The methods utilized in the study include classroom observation and interviews conducted among teachers and students. The study shows that the implementation of middle school task-based classroom teaching in China is still at its preliminary stage and many problems still exist in the factual implementation of TBLT approach. The results of the study indicate that some teachers show little interest in studying the theories of the TBLT Approach and they can not explain what the task is, neither can they state the principles of task design. Some teacher don’t know what role they should play on each stage of the task procedures and how they could facilitate the students’carrying out the tasks.Even worse, they can not defer tasks from exercises, and as a result, some task designs are neither authentic nor valid. And some task designs lack an information gap.Secondly, neither the students’ book nor the teachers’reference book provide enough scientific guidance for the teacher. Thirdly, the students are short of autonomous learning ability, and they are not sure of their own motivations of learning English. Some students even believe that it is no use to learn English. From these problems proceed difficulties in the implementation of task-based classroom teaching.At the end of the thesis, the author analyzes some factors that caused the above problems and tentatively offers some advice on further research work in the respect.