The Application Of Task-Based Language Teaching To The Teaching Of Listening In College English

This is an empirical research on the application of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) to the teaching of listening in college English.Listening is the Cinderella skill in second language learning(Nunan,2001).It is an important means of absorbing language information and cultivating the abilities of speaking,reading and writing.In people's daily communication,listening takes 45 per cent(孙冬梅,2008).However,the current situation of listening teaching of college English is not satisfactory.The listening teaching approach is dominated by the paradigm of tape-playing - exercise-doing - answer-checking,which is just testing listening rather than teaching how to listen and how to deal with problems that appear in listening processes.As a result,learners may gradually lose their stimulation of learning of listening.TBLT,put forward by the Indian linguists N.S.Prabhu in 1982 on the basis of Bangalore Project on strong version of communicative language teaching,is 'a learner-centered and learning by doing' language teaching approach.It starts with learners' interest,experience and their cognition,which can stimulate their enthusiasm of learning.In this approach,tasks,more or less closely related to daily life,are designed for learners to perform through interaction between learners and teachers or among students themselves.In TBLT classes,learners cooperate and interact with one another actively and autonomously.The research presented in this thesis was meant to answer the research questions:(1) Is TBLT more effective than the usual listening teaching method in the aspects of increasing subjects' listening proficiency?(2) Is TBLT more conducive to stimulating their learning enthusiasm? An empirical research was performed in an experimental class and a controlled class of sophomore in order to identify the effectiveness of TBLT in the teaching of college English listening compared with usual method.The data of the experiment were analyzed by Z-test and SPSS analytical software.Comparative analyses of the results of questionnaires and tests justified the author's assumptions:(1) TBLT is more effective than the usual approach in increasing learners' listening proficiency.(2) TBLT is more conducive than the usual approach to stimulating learners' learning enthusiasm.