Task-based Approach Applied Research In Oral English Teaching In Higher Vocational Logistics

With the rapid development of Chinese logistics, employees with a good command of both basic service skills and logistic English are badly needed. However, most of the potential employees are poor in English at higher vocational schools, especially in spoken English, which becomes the obstacle of communication in their future work.The traditional language teaching ideas always put emphasis on the training of the gammar and reading ability and the traditional model of teaching has many disadvantages. The effectiveness of oral teaching is quite low and students have little interest in learning. Task-based Language Teaching, combining the advantages of both traditional and modern language teaching theories, allows students to learn and use the language by a series of interactive tasks, emphasizing on communicative activities which makes the aim of study as a guide under the real situation.Students can learn, analyze, understand and use language by self-directed learning. During the learning process, the emphases are on the understanding of the meaning rather than on the form. Learning from "doing-it" is the key to learn language. The interactive learning styles will be promoted, learning from experiencing, practising, participating, communicating and co-operating. Students can learn language by using language, finding and solving problems, understanding language, hence sensing and experiencing the success of learning at the finishing of a task. Nowadays, in China, many books and articles have been written on the adoption of the Task-based Approach in general English, yet few of them have a systematic study of the application of the Task-based Approach to English for Special Purposes, such as, logistic English.So the author conducted an empirical study and wanted to test the effectiveness of the application of Task-based Approach to logistic oral English teaching. The thesis provides a detailed study on the literature review of Task-based Approach and analyzes the domestic and overseas reference documents.It makes an analysis of students' pre-test and pro-test and designs questionnaires. The tasks were designed carefully and the teaching procedures applied to logistic oral classes were based on the framework of Jane Willis. Then, experiments were conducted with field surveys, and data analysis was made concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the practical use of task-based learning.Lots of work and figures show that the Task-based Approach is effective in enhancing the students' oral English competence. Compared with the traditional model of teaching, the major advantages of the Task-based Approach can be summarized as follows:First, the TBLT model can lead students participating, investigating, summarizing and cooperating in the process of learning, which changes the traditional learning stytle. Second, with the input of the large amount of real language, learning becomes meaningful. In this way, the motivation of learning is greatly aroson. Third, in the process of finishing tasks, the multi-ability of students has been improved.Findings from this study suggest that teachers should follow the student-centered teaching model through the application of TBLT to their oral English teaching practice according to specific circumstances, design appropriate tasks for students and create appropriate language environment.