Effect Of Reporting: Task-based Teaching Of Oral English To Chinese College Students

Researches related to task-based language teaching (TBLT) were enormous and touched upon various perspectives, considering the relevant rich publications each year. However, few studies concentrated on the report stage of TBLT, let alone the in-depth investigation of the effect of different reporting methods on learners'oral English achievement. The present study, therefore, was intended to enrich present understanding of TBLT by revealing the effect of the report stage upon Chinese-speaking college students' oral English learning.87 college students (first-year non-English majors) from 3 classes participated in this study. One class formed the control class, receiving non-task-based teaching approach (PPP approach) and 24 students from this class were selected as subjects of the control group. In contrast, the other two classes served as the experimental classes, taught with the task-based teaching approach. Similarly,24 students from each of the two classes formed Experimental Group 1 and 2, and these two groups only differed at the report stage:the students in Experimental Group 1 determined the spokespersons for task groups by themselves, while students Experimental Group 2 had no right to choose their spokespersons and the teacher selected the spokespersons in an unbiased manner. All the other conditions were equal among the 3 groups, e.g., the same starting level of oral English proficiency, the same teacher, textbook and length of class time, etc.Data were mainly collected from 2 oral tests:the pre-and the post-tests. The oral English output of the subjects was recorded, transcribed, annotated, and scored. Then the statistic procedures of 2-independent-samples nonparametric test, one-way ANOVA, independent-samples t test, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were employed to analyze the data.The results showed that the task-based oral English teaching approach (regardless of the method of selecting the spokesperson) was significantly more effective than the PPP teaching approach in improving the Chinese-speaking college students'oral English proficiency in general and their accuracy and fluency as well. However, the task-based approach worked only a little bit better (but ns) than the non-task-based approach, in teaching pronunciation. More importantly, the results demonstrated that the TBLT with the task-group spokesperson randomly selected was significantly more effective than that with the spokesperson selected by task-group members, in improving oral English in general and accuracy as well. Yet in developing the students'fluency and pronunciation, the random-selection method for task-group spokespersons was only slightly (but ns) better.The findings of the study hold important pedagogical implications for oral English teaching in Chinese college. They may carry insights into the design and implementation of task-based college English teaching in China, with suggestions on appropriate treatment of the report stage in TBLT, which may in turn improve the learners' achievement.