An Applicative Research On The Task-based Approach Used In Oral Chinese Class

Task-based teaching approach focuses on the process of completing the task by ‘doing thetask while studying the language’. With this idea of teaching in mind, the authorof this paper conducted a tentative study related to the task-based teaching approach inChinese language teaching program of Wisetchanchai Tanti School, Thai Angthong, Thailand.A distinguishing feature of the Chinese language class in Thai middle schools is a smallamount of Chinese class hours in their teaching schedule, which leads to a relatively weakintensity for the student’s Chinese language learning. The task-based teaching approach maybe a way to improve the student’s Chinese in this situation. According to the school’s Chineseteaching environment, the scale and the actual Chinese language level of the students, theauthor implemented a task-based oral Chinese class so as to foster the oral Chinesecommunication ability of the Thai students.This paper is mainly divided into four parts. The first part is an background introduction,which mainly analyzes the necessity of this research, and the domestic and overseas researchstatus. The second part describes the task-based teaching approach as one of the traditionalcommunicative teaching approaches, explores its definition and theoretical basis, anddiscusses the characteristics of oral classes for teaching Chinese as a foreign language and theapplicability of the task-based teaching method in such classes. We analyze the features of oralChinese class in Tanti School and their understanding for the oral Chinese teaching situation,and then from four aspects we expound that the task-based approach can be well applied inoral Chinese classes at the school.In the third part, by following the theories and principles of the3P (Presentation,Practice and Production) teaching mode and the task-based teaching approach respectively, wedesign very detailed lesson plans for classroom teaching. These plans are carried outrespectively in the Chinese language classes of Grade1and Grade2students, who possess thesame level of Chinese language ability, in order to investigate the significance of the twodifferent teaching approaches while they are used in teaching oral Chinese. The fourth part summarizes what lessons we may learn from the application of the task-based teachingapproach in spoken Chinese as a foreign language, what problems we have run into and whatsolutions we may provide to solve them. We hope that through this study the task-basedteaching approach can be better applied in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, in order toimprove the students’ Chinese in oral communication.