An Appraisal Of Tasks In “Advance With English” From The Learner-centeredness Perspective

Task Section is developed around the theme of the unit and tries to offer students chances to learn by doing tasks in authentic environment. However, there are emerging problems in the execution Task Sections in class. The English Curriculum standards for Senior High Schools(2011) promote highly the Task-based language teaching approach and take learners as the central concern. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the 12 Task Sections from Module 1 to Module 4 from the learner-centeredness perspective.The author adopts Littlejohn?s definition of “task” and taking David Nunan?s Checklist for evaluating tasks as theoretical basis and with reference to the eight learner-centered principles, the task evaluation framework for the research has been established. The main research methods for the study include materials analysis and questionnaire survey.This paper tries to appraise the tasks from eight components, including goals, input, procedures, roles and settings, implementation, grading, integration, and assessment to answer the research questions:(1) For English learners in C hina, to what extent do the tasks in Task Section abide by the learner-centeredness principles?(2) What are the strengths and weakness of the design of the tasks in Task Section from the learner-centeredness perspective?Through analyzing the material of Task Sections and referring to students? feedback from the questionnaires, the following results and findings are obtained:(1) Four components(goals, procedures, roles and settings, assessment) of the tasks are designed appropriately examined with the learner-centeredness principles; the “grading” component is not learner-centered; three components partly conform to the learner-centered principles, they are “input”, “implementation” and “integration”, which should be improved to make it appropriate for Chinese students.(2) For Chinese students, Task Sections have the following strengths: it provides students with a clear and appropriate goal and help students to b e goal-directed; it makes full use of the Scaffolding Principle: the three skills building provide students with enough skills training before performing the tasks in Step 3; it provides students with relatively more chances to communicate and cooperate with others; Task Section has built into it definite means for learners judging their performance.For the weakness, the amount of material of Task Section is too large for students to finish them in class and some of the material is not authentic to students? daily life in the field of “input”; for the part of “implementation”, a portion of tasks can not engage the students? interest and attention all the time; tasks are not arranged from the simple ones to difficult ones in terms of “grading”; students feel confused about the integration of some steps in Task Sections from the angle of “integration”.The study has brought out the implications that(1) The findings can give inspiration and guidance to the users of Task Section: teachers can adapt the contents when implementing Task Section to make them suitable to students.(2) The findings also can give advices and suggestions to the designers of the textbook to make them more practical for Chinese English learners.