The Application Of TBLT To The Oral English Teaching In The Vocational School

Chinese vocational school students are a special kind of students different from the ordinary university students, for they are to become practical workers instead of scholars. So apart from teaching them essential knowledge of English language, teachers should also foster their ability of practically using English in communication. That is to say, the traditional English teaching methods cannot satisfy today's new needs, and the English teachers in the vocational schools should seek the new teaching methods to meet the new challenges. Task-Based Language Teaching, widely adopted since 1980's, is an approach recommended for vocational schools by China's Ministry of Education. The TBLT, which aims at fostering learners' language communicative competence, puts emphasis on the learning process in which language lessons are closely linked to real-life experiences. As this approach fits in with the overall educational goal of vocational schools, the current study explores the feasibility and effect of task-based language teaching in vocational schools with a view to improving the learners'communicative skills. The experimental results suggest that arranging tasks flexibly in English classes according to students'existing situations can effectively arouse students'interest in learning English, increase their confidence and improve their oral performance in communication.Chapter One of this thesis points out the problems that task-based language teaching intends to solve and its major characteristics to justify this research project. Chapter Two defines the concept of task and discusses the theoretical foundations, main features, principles and framework of task-based language teaching. Chapter Three lists the implementation procedures of TBLT in oral English classes and introduces the experimental aims, subjects and methods. To be specific, TBLT is applied to the experimental class alone and the control class is taught in the traditional way. Then data from questionnaires and test scores are collected for a comparative study. Chapter Four shows the contrast between the two classes in figures and tables, and discusses the significance of the statistics. Chapter Five reveals the experiment's implication for English teaching at vocational schools before closing the thesis with suggestions for task-based language teaching in the future.