A Research Of TBLT In Primary School Based On Virtual Environment

As an important language teaching mode, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) is putforward on the basis of many theoretical and practical researches in1980s. With the principle“learning by doing”, it takes “task” as language teaching approach to develop students’ abilityto use foreign language in real life. The term TBLT implies a student-centered teaching idea,and puts “linguistic meaning” in the first place. It is of significance to change traditionalforeign language teaching pattern in China which stresses “linguistic form” and “input”, butneglects “meaning” and “output”. TBLT is believed to be one of the most effectiveapproaches to improve students’ practical ability to use the target language. Therefore, TBLThas aroused extensive concern in our country. Being put forward in the English CurriculumCriterion in2001, TBLT advocates that language use should be implemented in teachingprocess, and emphasizes that students use language to do things. However, according torecent years’ studies, TBLT is not well popularized and implemented in China. Theunderlying reason is that the foreign language education system does not make the theory ofTBLT incorporate well with the teaching practice. To a certain extent, the implementation andpromotion of TBLT have been restricted by such problems as “score first” evaluation system,the quality of teachers, class hour, class size, and language environment. Moreover, theseproblems are difficult to solve in short term.In view of these existing problems, the present study proposes that TBLT should beextended to extra-curricular activities. With the application of virtual environment technologyto the environmental design, the present study will design an extra-curricular taskenvironment for primary school students to simulate the target language environment to solveexisting problems. In order to verify the feasibility of this research hypothesis, an experimentis organized in virtual environment “Vill@ge LLP Island”. The experimental results showthat, students are able to use foreign language to solve practical problems in life when theyenter the virtual environment, which can arouse students’ learning interest, greatly stimulatestudents’ learning motivation, and make them get a great sense of achievement. On the basis of this experiment, the present study takes primary English textbooks (Hebei version) as thekey link, and designs an extra-curricular task environment in “Second Life” for primaryschool students of HeBei province. The environment is designed to simulate the targetlanguage environment which can expose learners to the authentic language environment. Inthis sense, the extra-curricular extension of TBLT complements English class teaching, whichcan improve students’ ability to use foreign language and enhance the quality of foreignlanguage teaching in basic education.This thesis is composed of5chapters. Chapter1provides a brief introduction to thepresent study, including research background, research object, research methods, thesignificance, aims, and the organization of the thesis. In chapter2, a general review is givento introduce previous studies on TBLT both in China and abroad, which includes thebackground of the TBLT approach’s coming into being, theoretical basis, existing problemsand related researches on problems-solving. And in the part of researches onproblems-solving, the thesis focuses on Swansea University’s researches on the secondlanguage acquisition based on virtual environment. Chapter3introduces the process andrelated analysis of an experiment, in which primary school students complete tasks in“Vill@ge LLP Island”. In chapter4, based on the virtual environment and primary Englishtextbooks (Hebei version), this thesis designs an extra-curricular task environment forprimary school students to solve existing problems. Chapter5is the conclusion part of thethesis, in which the author summarizes the major findings of the present study and points outsome limitations of the research. And some recommendations are given for the futureresearches in this area.