A Study On Effects Of Convergent Task On Senior High Students' Oral English

The role of tasks in second language acquisition has always been the focus of second language acquisition research.Previous studies focused on examining the impact of various task variables on the level of interaction and language performance in the task completion process.However,researches on the effectiveness of language acquisition after the task completion process are not sufficient.At the same time,in terms of the task type variable,scholars home and abroad mainly investigate its effects on university students,and the research contents mainly focus on the comparison of two or more task types,while researches on a certain task type are relatively insufficient.Moreover,the impact of a certain task type on the effectiveness of high school students' oral English learning so far has been little researched.Therefore,this study focuses on the convergent task,informed by the task-based teaching method,as well as social constructivism,to explore its impacts on the high school students' oral English acquisition.This thesis aims at exploring the value of the convergent task based on the task-based language teaching model in senior high school oral English teaching and learning.In order to make the research design more reasonable and coherent,this paper is designed to explore the following research questions:(1)What changes have brought to senior high students' attitudes toward oral English and classroom oral English tasks after the teaching experiment?(2)Whether senior high school students' oral English performance can be improved with convergent tasks?(3)Does the convergent task has similar effect on oral fluency,accuracy and complexity of senior high school students' oral English? Then the author conducts an empirical study which lasts for four months at a senior high school in Panjin,Liaoning province.The subjects are 80 students from two parallel classes(one is experimental class and the other is control class)in Grade 1.Questionnaires and interviews related to students' attitudes toward oral English and classroom oral English tasks and oral English pre-test and post-test for both control and experimental classes are put in effect.The author analyzes and compares the results of tests with the software SPSS 19.0.Taking the analysis of oral tests and results of questionnaires and interviews into account,the author draws the following conclusions:(1)After completing a period of convergent tasks,senior high students have more positive attitudes toward oral English and classroom oral English tasks.Students aremore willing to take part in classroom oral tasks and they have more confidence in their own oral English ability.(2)Senior high school students' oral English proficiency can be improved with convergent tasks.Their English pronunciation is more standard,and students can use more accurate and rich words in expression.(3)Compared with the achievement of oral complexity,students have made more progress in oral English fluency and accuracy.Above all,applying convergent oral English tasks into English classrooms in senior high schools has positive and practical significance.The author puts forward some specific pedagogical implications for using this kind of task type in senior high oral English teaching.Meanwhile,the author points out the limitations of the research and suggestions for future study.