Students’ Evaluation Of The Implementation Of The Task-based Reading Course For English Majors

Starting with Prabhu’s account of the Communicational Language Teaching Project, TBLT has undergone about thirty years of research by experts and educators. The significance of this approach is self-evident based on the number of recently published books and volumes that focus specifically on the pedagogical principles of TBLT and the variables and characteristics of tasks. However, few studies have investigated the implementation of TBLT especially in China beyond the identification of issues encountered when experienced teachers attempt to utilize TBLT.Based on the previous few studies about the practical concerns presented in the process of its implementation, two questions are addressed in this thesis:(1) what are the students’ attitudes and understandings toward TBLT? And (2) what are the factors that can influence the successful design and implementation of task-based teaching? This research is of significance because it points out the crucial problems which may frequently occur in the process of task-based teaching as well as demonstrating the helpful and useful tips for the teachers to manipulate. Through this experiment, it is hoped that it can at least to some extent smooth the way for the instructors to design a task-based course and implement TBLT in the Chinese classrooms with the English majors.In this empirical study, there are three classes of75participants with8males and67females. They are the English majors who were enrolled in Anhui Foreign Language University in the academic year2013/2014. The experiment has lasted for14weeks. In order to collect the data for analysis, a questionnaire is developed. The scores of the students before and after the experiment were also collected and compared to illustrate whether the task-based course was effective. Besides, the performance of the students were observed and noted down by the researcher.With the help of statistical software SPSS17, percentages, means, modes and standard deviations for each item in the questionnaire were presented and analyzed. The findings include five aspects. Firstly, the participants’background knowledge of TBLT is limited and students’understanding of task is confined to an unfocused one. The majority of participants are willing to spend time adapting to a new approach in the classroom. Secondly, in terms of group membership, the students are inclined to consider two elements when deciding the group members by themselves:the personal relationship and the English proficiency. Thirdly, as to the designed tasks, the students think it is worthwhile to finish them which can help to improve their language ability. There is a negative relationship between the task performance and the task time given to the students. Fourthly, the cooperative teaching turns out to be a good and assessable method to turn the teacher-center classroom into a students-oriented one. Finally, there is a necessity to tailor the assessment to the teaching approach. The task-based course is not so effective in terms of improving students’overall language ability.