The Application Of Task-based Language Teaching In English Reading Teaching Of Junior Middle School

Reading is one of the main input ways of language learning, and it is also the basic way to get information and to study. This establishes the important position of the teaching of reading in English teaching. And cultivating and enhancing students’reading comprehension ability is an important purpose of reading teaching. In order to arouse students’enthusiasm and interest in learning, students should be exposed to the activities of using language in the English reading teaching in junior middle school. However, there are a lot of problems in the current English reading class in junior middle school: such as students’poor interests in reading, low comprehension, tired of teachers teaching, tired of students learning. In order to change the present situation, the Ministry of Education promulgated New Standards for Full-time Compulsory Education Curriculums (2012) clearly advocated task-based language teaching, cultivated students’ comprehensive language application ability. Task-based language teaching is a student-centered teaching method. It emphasizes "learning by doing", "using language to do things". Under the instruction of the target of the tasks, students will complete the learning tasks and improve the comprehensive reading ability.The purpose of this paper is to confirm that task-based language teaching is effective in junior middle school English reading teaching, which can change the students’ attitude toward English reading and enhance students’reading interest and ability. In order to confirm this argument, the author carries out an experiment in two parallel classes which are taught by herself (divided into experimental class and control class) for one semester. Before the experiment, through the reading comprehension tests, the author finds out the two class students’reading level; through the questionnaires, the author finds out students’attitude towards English reading class in the experimental class. In the experiment, the author adopts the Constructivist Theory, combines Willis’Three Stages Teaching Model. Therefore, the author only applies this model in the experimental class. In the control class, the traditional teaching methods are still employed. At the end of the experiment, the students of the experimental class are investigated again by the questionnaires; the students of the two classes are tested again by reading comprehension tests, and the author uses SPSS 17.0 to analyze and compare the relevant data. In order to understand the situation of the implementation of task-based language teaching, the students of the experimental class are interviewed individually in the process of experiment.The experimental results show that task-based language teaching is more effective than traditional teaching in reading class:students’ learning attitude is more positive, their learning interest is higher, and the English reading level also has a great improvement. Although task-based language teaching has achieved some results in the teaching practice, there are also a series of issues, such as how to determine the level of difficulty of the tasks and so on.