An Empirical Study Of Task-based Approach To English Teaching Of Writing In High Schools

Nowadays with the more frequent international communication between countries, English, which acts as the most important medium of communication in the world and is seen as the global language, is becoming more and more important. English writing, as one of the most productive skills, is a mirror of the integrated skills in mastery of good English. Therefore, the teaching of English writing draws much attention of many English-speaking people. To enable the students to accomplish the real task in real life has become instructors'responsibility. However, in many English as foreign language(EFL) learning and teaching contexts in China, high school students are making complaints of low motivation in a boring writing class, less chance to express their own ideas, at a loss when doing some writing assignments, even their little progress in English writing skill,and less communicative competence in written English in the real world. Problems result from several factors and the method for the teaching of English writing is one of them. The traditional 3Ps (presentation-practice-production) methods fail to prepare students to actively and confidently write as writers with an integrated skill in or out of class, let alone they individually write about what will be needed to exchange in the real life. According to Picas (1993), the 3Ps method goes against the nature of writing, which is a process of interactive communication.Since the 1980s, when Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) approach was proposed and used experimentally in the classroom of Indian by N.S. Prabhu, the approach has been a focus, which emphasizes learner-centered, cooperative learning and dynamic task-based activities, describing natural acquisition of a language for communication in class (Littlewood 1992; Nunan, 1989). The approach has been discussed and researched on. The task is a classroom activity in which students use real-life language to achieve a specific outcome (Skehan, 1996). Willis(1996) states that the focus of TBLT approach is on learners'completing the task successfully by means of communicating through interaction and cooperation in the target language. In 2001 it was introduced into English teaching in China. The National New English Curriculum Standard promotes definitely the Task-based Teaching: after the teachers'instruction, it resolves to improve the students'ability in complex language application. However, empirical studies of its application within the framework for the implementation of TBLT are rarely found in the field of writing, especially under Chinese EFL environment in high schools.The paper is mainly based on Wi11is, Skehan, Nunan's researches on TBLT. A"task-based writing"program in the thesis has been designed to investigate the possible effectiveness of implementing the task-based approach to English writing in high school.The study attempts to answer the following questions:a. Is the task-based approach effective in promoting the students'writing competence?b. Is the task-based approach helpful in enhancing the students'motivation in English writing?c. Is the task-based approach effective in helping the students to get into a better writing habit? This experimental study involved 124 students in two equal level classes of Senior Grade Two by the same teacher, in which one class was a control class and the other one acted as an experimental class. During the experiment they experienced an upgrade. The experiment lasted for about ten months, from March, 2007 to January, 2008. The researcher taught the experimental class in the task-based writing approach, while the control class was taught in the traditional 3Ps-based (presentation, practice and production) writing approach.The result shows:a. The task-based approach is effective in promoting the students'writing competence.b. The task-based approach is helpful in enhancing the students'motivation in English writing.c. The task-based approach is effective in helping the students to get into a better writing habit.It is expected that the findings and discussions in the present study will throw light on the designing and implementing of tasks for daily English writing instruction.