Task-based Approach In Teaching Senior English Reading

Task-based approach is an orientation. According to the course criteria of teaching English, task-based activities should be adopted in English teaching. Reading is a large part in teaching English. So in reading teaching, task-based approaches should be used more. In task-based approach, students can be put into the activities in which they can perceive, analyze, comprehend and drill what they need to learn. And they can try to develop their ability of using English from the mimic communication to the real communication. Thus, the language can be completely grasped by the students. The purpose of reading is to adjust the students'initiative of study, arouse their interest, form the good learning style and develop their reading skills. Task-based approach is a good way to reach these goals. However, in everyday teaching in my school, I found that so many teachers still adopt traditional approaches, students'initiative can not be aroused and therefore the efficiency of reading is still very low.In this thesis, I make investigations about the situation of reading teaching in my school and point out the problems as follows: Students don't spend the main time in reading but spend a large amount of time in making notes; teachers usually use explaining approach or teacher asking, students answering approach. Therefore, a lot of students lose interest in reading. In order to deal with these kinds of problem, I make up my mind to adopt the task-based approach in teaching reading and use the action research in my teaching. I teach two classes. One is an experimental class and the other is a control class. In the control class, I adopt the traditional approach and in the experimental class I use the task-basked approach. That is: in the pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading, a lot of tasks are designed such as discussion, debate, interview and so on. After one term, the students'reading ability and the reading interest from the experimental class is higher than that from the control class. Task-based approach in teaching reading proves to be useful and practical in practice.