Implementation Of Task-based Vocabulary Instruction In Senior High School

In recent years, the study of Task-based language learning and teaching has been received more and more concerns, Vocabulary is the basic element of language communication and the majority of language learners agree that vocabulary is one of the biggest problems the learners encounter in daily communication and in various English tests. So far, there is no shortage of papers studying vocabulary acquisition whether from a teaching or learning point of view. Most of them attempt to probe vocabulary development in colleges and universities. However, little has been done to investigate the task-based approach in foreign language vocabulary, especially in senior high school.The new curriculum criterion has set a much higher standard for senior students in their vocabulary. In conventional approach, English vocabulary learning frustrates many students as a tedious toil to be endured, which makes students memorize English words in isolation without linking the vocabulary teaching with the development of the students' linguistic competence. Task-based English vocabulary teaching provides a meaningful context for vocabulary "acquisition", which facilitates the students' intake process.This thesis attempted to investigate to what extent Task-based approach was effective than the conventional way in vocabulary teaching of English as a foreign language in large class in senior high school in China as well as the participants' attitude towards the newly-adopted approach and the task' forms. It reports a small-scale study, conducted at Shijiazhuang No.25 Middle School in the autumn of 2004, which involved 115 students of senior one. The 115 subjects consist of two groups, 59 were in the experimental group, and the other 56 were in the control group. And all the data and information were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by employing SPSS11.0.The findings of this research indicate that the advantages of task-based approach in vocabulary teaching are indisputable. Performing tasks stimulates the learners' motivation for real world communication.