Task-based Approach To Teaching Reading In High School

The growing trend in high-school English teaching is for teachers to adopt task-based approach. According to the course criteria of teaching English, task-based approach should be adopted in English teaching as much as possible. Reading plays an important role in teaching English, so in the process of reading teaching, students should 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 studying style and develop their reading skills. Task-based approach is a good way to reach these goals. However, in everyday teaching, so many teachers still adopt traditional approaches and students' initiative can not be aroused and therefore the efficiency of reading is still very low. At the same time the improvement of the reading skills is limited. According to the writer's years of observation and consultations with colleagues, it is agreed that several problems exist in the current reading teaching in high school: first, training approaches are too simple; Second, teaching emphasis is deviated; Third, students lack reading skills; and last the students have not formed good reading habits.In order to deal with these kinds of problems, the writer has adopted the task-based approach in teaching reading and use the action research in teaching. The writer has selected two classes as subjects: One as experimental class and the other control class. In the control class, the writer adopted the traditional 3P teaching approach while in the experimental class the writer d the task-basked approach.In pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading, a lot of tasks are designed such as prediction, skimming scanning, detailed reading and critical reading and so on. After three and half months, the students' reading ability and the reading interest from the experimental class is higher than those from the control class. Task-based approach in teaching reading proves to be useful and practical.Of course, the disadvantages of task-based approach in teaching reading come out in the process of experiment. Or rather we can say the newly-rising approach has some difficulty adjusting itself to the large-sized teaching in most part of China. Anyhow, task-based approach has more advantages over disadvantages and it is certain to be widely accepted and put into use. As teachers in the frontline, we should bravely meet new challenges and spare no efforts to improve teaching ability...