A Study On The Application Of Task-Based Approach To Increase Students' Reading Abilities In Vocational College

Reading comprehension has always been receiving much attention in teaching and learning English and other foreign languages. Teachers have taken a lot of efforts to develop effective teaching methods and strategies, and have accomplished a lot of achievements. However, we can still find that many teachers mainly attributed the students' poor reading comprehension to linguistic deficiencies. In class, they devote much time and energy to the teaching of vocabulary and grammar. However, the result was often, although not always, disappointing. In fact, reading is a meaning-making process involving an interaction between the reader and the text. Readers use mental activities in order to construct meaning from text. They do not read word for word, but rather use their background knowledge, and various strategies. Task-based approach can overcome the shortcomings in traditional teaching models, it provides opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language, but also on the learning process itself, it takes an enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning, and it attempts to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom. In task-based instruction, the priority is not the bits and pieces of language but rather the functional purposes for which language must be used. The learning process is multi-dimensional, creative, and spontaneous, not a linear sequence. Therefore, the goal of improving reading comprehension can be achieved for the teachers of reading by realizing the mental process of reading comprehension and how prior knowledge can enhance a reader's interaction with the text through task-based approach.