A Case Study On The Application Of Task-based Language Teaching Approach To English Reading Teaching In Senior High School

There are four basic skills in language learning- listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, reading plays a vital role, which directly influences English language competence. In that case, the goal of English teaching should focus on the cultivation of English reading interest and motivation as well as the enhancement of reading ability.For a long time, China takes the traditional 3Ps teaching method- Presentation, Practice and Production. Teachers play the central role and they usually teach English word by word and sentence by sentence by means of translation in a mechanical and unnatural way. As a result, students speak “dumb English.”In 2001 the Ministry of Education issued the New Curriculum Standards of English Course. It’s stated clearly that TBLT is an efficient teaching method to promote students’ comprehensive ability.The main principles of TBLT are “learn from doing” and “student-centered teaching.” Students are encouraged to participate in various communicative activities, express their opinions and share prior experiences in the target language freely while accomplishing tasks. Apart from language form, language function is put an emphasis on as well(Gong & Luo, 2003).This thesis focuses on the implementation of TBLT in English reading teaching in senior high school. The 6-month-experiment takes two classes of almost the same language level in Grade One from a certain senior high school for comparison on English reading teaching. The experimental class adopts TBLT approach while the control class takes on the traditional 3Ps teaching method. Research results obtained from the pre-test, the post-test, the questionnaire, interviews and classroom observations are utilized with the help of the professional statistic software SPSS. Conclusion can be drawn that compared with the traditional 3Ps teaching method, TBLT can better improve students’ interest and motivation in English reading as well as enhance reading ability.Through teaching activities, this thesis discovers the following advantages on the application of TBLT in English reading teaching:(1) TBLT can arouse students’ interest and motivation. Through various teaching aids, such as pictures, songs and videos, students will be amazed at the western culture as well as the charm of English language, which are helpful to English reading comprehension.(2) TBLT can improve students’ reading ability. By means of a variety of reading skills and strategies, such as skimming, scanning, predicting, guessing meanings and finding out the key sentences, students’ reading ability will get improved a lot.(3) TBLT can cultivate student-centered consciousness. Teachers should be aware that students are the center of English learning process. Students ought to be given enough opportunity to express their opinions and share prior experiences with each other freely.(4) TBLT can enhance students’ cooperation and communicative ability. Throughout the procedure of completing tasks via group-work, students are advocated to cooperate and communicate with others, and thus establish team-work spirit.(5) TBLT can foster autonomous and life-long learning attitude. To live is to learn. After class, students are encouraged to explore the unknown world on the basis of the already-learned knowledge.Through teaching activities, this thesis discovers the following implications on the application of TBLT in future English reading teaching:(1) TBLT is efficient in English reading teaching; therefore it can be promoted in a more wide range.(2) Teachers’ comprehensive competence ought to be cultivated. As the models for students to follow, teachers must improve not only the comprehensive language knowledge skills but also their interactive ability, flexible ability, conducting tasks ability and judging ability, in order to culture students onto full grown man.(3) Individual differences should be considered. Owning to the diversities of students’ age, background of education and their families, the development of their mental status and some other factors, teachers should take all those into careful consideration as a whole and thus design tasks and lesson plans suitable for them.(4) Reflection should not be ignored. Reflection makes human beings progress. Each day students as well as teachers are supposed to reflect what they’ve learned and what they’ve missed so as to make more progress.