A Study Of Senior High School English Teachers' Perceptions Of Task-Based Language Teaching

The ‘National English Curriculum Standards' enacted in 2001 in China strongly advocated the use of Task-based Language Teaching method in English teaching to cultivate students' comprehensive language skills,which prompted researchers to carry out a large number of Task-based Language Teaching practice and teaching case design,and set off a boom in Task-based Language Teaching research..20 years have passed,although Task-based Language Teaching has experienced some ups and downs in China,people have never stopped thinking about it.Some scholars believe that Task-based Language Teaching still has value in today's foreign language teaching reform in China,but only if teachers have a comprehensive and correct understanding of it,can it play its due role.Therefore,it is very important to study teachers' perceptions of Task-based Language Teaching,and it is related to teachers' true implementation of teaching reform.Then what are the high school English teachers' perceptions of tasks as classroom implementers? What are their views on implementing TBLT? Why do they choose or avoid implementing TBLT?In this paper,quantitative and qualitative research methods are used to try to investigate the perceptions of high school English teachers towards Task-based Language Teaching and its implementation process.The investigation mainly involves teachers' perceptions of task and Task-based Language Teaching,teachers' perceptions of Task-based Language Teaching implementation process and on the attitudes of using Task-based Language Teaching method.The quantitative research data is mainly from a questionnaire survey of 106 teachers in more than 30 schools in Sichuan Province.The questionnaire chosen in this research is designed by Korean researchers Jeon and Hahn.Qualitative research is a semi-structured interview of eight teachers with different teaching experiences.The research results can be summarized into two points: first,most of the teachers know Task-based Language Teaching,but their understanding of the key steps and characteristics are different;some of the teachers misunderstand the procedures and characteristics.Second,most teachers take a positive attitude towards task-based language teaching and are willing to adopt task-based language teaching in practice,but due to limited time and space constraints,differences in students' levels,examination-oriented education systems,and difficulties in designing tasks,they stated there are certain difficulties in implementation.Schools and local education departments need to organize training courses on Task-based Language Teaching regularly so as to help teachers correctly understand task-based language teaching and enhance teachers' ability to use Task-based Language Teaching in the classroom.