A Study On The Speaking Task Design Of English For Logistics From The Perspective Of Littlejohn’s Task Evaluation Theory

Teaching materials are an essential part within the curriculum. As anindispensable part of English textbooks, task design plays an important role inimproving learners’ comprehensive language proficiency and cultivating learners’autonomous learning ability. A variety of logistics English coursebooks for highervocational colleges are published. However，there has been few domestic researchspecifically on these logistics English coursebooks. From the perspective of taskdesign, this current study chooses the speaking task design of English for Logistics forhigher vocational colleges. This study attempts to answer the following researchquestions:1. What are the features of the speaking task design in English for Logistics fromthe perspective of Littlejohn’s task evaluation theory?2. What are the strengths and existing problems of speaking task design in Englishfor Logistics? And what are the causes for the problems?This study adopts Littlejohn’s (1998) Task Analysis Sheet as analytical framework,takes questionnaire and interview as research instruments, examining200learners and7English teachers from Hunan Vocational College of Modern Logistics throughquestionnaire and interview respectively, and applies both quantitative and qualitativeapproaches. By means of the data analysis and evaluation on the speaking task designin English for Logistics, the major findings of this thesis are clarified below:1. The features of speaking task design in English for Logistics are revealed asbelow:(1) Speaking tasks require learners to initiate the speaking task and encouragecollaborative learning.(2) All the topics are closely related with the typical workingprocess of logistics industry.(3) The forms of input and expected output lack varietyand it’s difficult to increase learners’ interest and activate their participation.2. The major strengths of the speaking task design in English for Logistics areconcluded from the following aspects: real logistics situations, definite goals, adequatesample dialogues, sentence patterns or expressions given to learners for references andlots of opportunities for cooperative learning. The problems exist in: lack of varioustask types, excessive quantity of speaking tasks, high-level difficulty of some speakingtasks and lack of assessment and evaluation in speaking tasks. Major possible reasonsfor these problems include the constraint of material writers’ theory accomplishment, low English proficiency of the learners and lack of sufficient learning needs analysis inspeaking task design.Based on the above findings, some implications are elaborated so as to providesome reference and help for the future teaching and development of the speaking tasksin coursebooks of Logistics English. Meanwhile the limitations of the study areproposed.