Chapter One Introduction
1.1 The Background of the Study
With the rapid development of the information society and the increasing frequency of international communication, English has become an international language. The main academic journals of learning discipline and research are also dominated by the English language. English is often widely used in English teaching in junior middle schools. As we all know, reading is a basic part of English teaching in junior middle school. The main purpose of reading is to develop and improve students’ understanding of English texts. Thus, more and more people begin to pay close attention to how to effectively carry out English reading. For example，how to increase students’ learning interest, how to change students’ learning style, learning strategy and so on. We know that English reading can have a great influence on the other three main skills---listening, speaking and writing. Meanwhile, reading can also improve the students’ communicative competence.
In 2001, the Chinese State Education Commission released the New English Curriculum Standards (NECT), the Task-based Approach was advocated. It points out that the Task-based Approach is mainly used to develop the students’ comprehensive ability of language use in the course of English learning. It was named the Task-based Teaching Method. It is a new teaching method and students are the foundation. In addition, students should be the main part in the Task-based Approach. Students can choose to work independently or jointly. In the process of completing the task, the design of these activities can make a connection between each student and the social environment. By doing so, we can change the teachers’ character and also change the students. Teachers should guide the students to finish their learning tasks and students feel success by experience, feeling, participation and cooperation. It is also necessary for teachers to keep good emotion and select appropriate strategies to help students form positive attitudes towards learning reading skills and help students develop comprehensive language ability.
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1.2 The Purpose of the Study
The Task-based Approach transforms the basic concepts of language application into classroom teaching behavior with practical significance. Students naturally use their language learned in the process of doing things to develop their language ability. It has two basic ideas: Learning by doing and doing things by language. It changes the former teaching viewpoint centered on teachers, instead of taking students as the center, educating students to learn for use, and using them in learning. Based on tasks, this teaching method aims to cultivate and improve students’ communicative competence in English. It can fully mobilize students’ learning enthusiasm, tap their potential and cultivate their creativity. It requires teachers to design tasks suitable for students of different levels according to the students’ current learning level, and lets the students complete the tasks through cooperation and consultation, and improve their ability to find and solve problems, cultivate innovative thinking ability, cooperation consciousness and the spirit of participation. The students also experience the joy of success in the process of completing the tasks, and enhance English reading interest, which fully reflects Education concept based on human development and the basic requirement of quality education in English.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Theoretical Foundations
The theoretical basis of Task-based Language Teaching and learning is multifaceted. It includes psychological linguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and so on. (Gong Yafu, Luo Shaoxi, 2003). Some of the main theoretical foundations will be listed so that we can understand better what task-based teaching and learning are. Meanwhile, it can help us think about the ways of language learning from the aspect of learners and feedback teaching and the way of thinking from the aspect of teachers.
2.1.1 Constructivism
Constructivism was first proposed by Swiss psychologist Piaget. This theory insists that knowledge is not taught by teachers, but it is constructed by the learners themselves in certain situations or in the social background. With the help of teachers and learning partners, the learners can use the necessary learning materials and media. Therefore, they can obtain the knowledge through the construction of meaning. Learning is in the certain situations that with the help of teachers or learning partners, we can realize the meaning construction process through the collaborative activities of the interpersonal, so the constructivist learning theory argues that there are four elements in the learning atmosphere. They are situation, collaborative, conversation and significance construction.
Piaget related the cognitive development theory with education theory. Meanwhile, he applied it to foreign language teaching. Social constructivist theory thought that “learning was social and cooperative activity. The development was social and cooperative activity, too. These activities couldn’t be taught in class. Knowledge was constructed by the students themselves, not by others.”(Candlin,C, 1987:22). This type of structure appears when students contacts with other people. This is the result of social interaction. Students themselves can organize their understanding of objective things and evaluate the process of learning. They dislike the kind of teaching methods that are only taught. Teachers were the most important interactive roles.
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2.2 The Task-based Language Teaching
2.2.1 The Definition of Task
When we refer to the Task-based Language Teaching, task will be first discussed. Then, what is task? Although there are a large number of articles on the Task-based Language Teaching, there is not a widely accepted concept about task so far. Task-based language teaching consists of a series of tasks as teaching organizational units, and classroom teaching contains a series of tasks. But there is not a widely recognized definition of the concept of “task” at present. Several definitions of task were mentioned as follows.
Littlewood (2002) believed that a task is a special activity. A teacher or a student can set the activity. The goal may be in language. Both finding grammatical rules and completing exercises are in it.
Widdowson (1990) believed that the task must be chosen with great care to enable learners to engage in purposeful problem-solving activities with them.
David Nunan (1989) is also one of the earlier scholars to study the theory and practice of Task-based Approach. He thought that the task refers to the various learning activities that students understand, deal with, output the target language or communicate with the target language in the classroom. The focus of the learner’s attention was mainly on the meaning of expression, not the form of language practice.
Jane Willis (1996) believed that “tasks are always activities where the target language is used by learner for a communication purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.”(Willis J, 1996:22). The task is the activity of learners to use the target language in order to achieve a goal.
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Chapter Three Research Methodology ................................. 24
3.1 Research Objectives and Questions ......................... 24
3.2 Research Hypothesis ............................. 24
3.3 Research Subjects ............................. 24
Chapter Four Results and Discussion ....................................... 40
4.1 The Results of the Questionnaires .................................... 40
4.1.1 Results of the Pre- questionnaires ............................... 40
4.1.2 Results of the Post- questionnaires .................................. 41
Chapter Five Conclusion................................... 47
5.1 Main Findings of the Research ......................... 47
5.2 Implications for Future Task-based Language Teaching .................. 49
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
4.1 The Results of the Questionnaires
The test analyzed in the above session has revealed the effect of TBLT in reading teaching. TBLT has been proved to be helpful to students’ reading learning. As for whether teachers should change the reading teaching method and how to change it, students’ opinion should be taken into consideration. In order to collect students’ opinion on the reading lessons, the questionnaires were needed. This part is about the results of the questionnaires.
There are totally some choices and a suggestion in the questionnaires. These questions are used to investigate the students’ attitude to reading learning and reading teaching method. Each question has different choices to measure the students’ attitude. And at the end of the questionnaire students can give their advice and opinion.
4.1.1 Results of the Pre- questionnaires
According to the result of the test, the author analyzes data with software SPSS17.0. In order to explore some meaningful differences in English reading teaching, the author calculated the average score, the t-test, the standard deviation and the P value of the experiment.
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Chapter Five Conclusion
5.1 Main findings of the research
Task-based Approach makes class more open, and students have more opportunities to learn. For each teacher, it can be said that opportunities and challenges coexist, which require the teachers constantly to learn, improve, and carefully to prepare every teaching task, give the design of the specific cases in the classroom realistically, understand the differences between different levels of students in detail to make students’ knowledge keep pace with the times.
Task-based Approach has been widely accepted and used by some teachers. This teaching method has its own advantages, which can make students know how to learn and cultivate their ability of autonomous learning. At the same time, it is also a kind of creative activity that teachers and students participating. In the process of participation, it requires equal status between teachers and students, teachers and students should be mutual trust, mutual respect, in the spirit of mutual learning and common progress to complete the tasks of learning. In addition, it lays stress on the changes between teachers and students to improve the students’ main position in the classroom, stimulate students’ interest in participation, and cultivate their good habit of helping each other or teamwork, developing a good team work spirit is also particularly important. Task-based Approach is also very helpful for the cultivation of the spirit of cooperation while enhancing students’ learning ability.
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