A Study On The English Classroom Activities In Junior High School From The Perspective Of The Task-based Language Teaching: Problems And Suggestions

In recent years, primary and secondary school English curriculum reform hasbecome the social focus. The New Curriculum Standards (2001) clearly requirescultivating students' comprehensive English application competence. The curriculumalso advocates the task-based language teaching model. Under the guidance of teachers,students achieve task objectives and feel success through perception, experience,practice, participation and cooperation, etc. In the learning process, students are guidedto adjust affective and strategic aspects to form positive learning attitudes and improvepractical language application competence.In fact, the task-based approach in English teaching in secondary schools has notonly been promoted and concerned, but is also being widely adopted and implementedin middle school English classes. However, in the process of teaching practice based ontask-based language teaching, there exist some problems in the actual Englishclassroom activities. Thus it does not get the possible good teaching effects expected inTBLT.In the preparation of this thesis, the author has done the education practice in a keymiddle school in Chongqing (during this period, the author audited the English classesof the whole junior Grade2for about two months) and has attended some English openclasses of some junior high schools in different levels and has also watched some openclass videos. On the basis of theories related to TBLT, the author found that someproblems existed in English classroom activities practice. Thus, the author selected fourtypical cases to analyze problems from such aspects as form and meaning, input andoutput, task chain, meaning negotiation and real-world tasks.In form and meaning, teachers often mainly focus on meaning and neglect form,which makes the task-based language teaching class a simply performing class. In inputand output, teachers often mainly concern students' language output and language input is very little. In task chain, teachers often neglect the continuity and progressiveness oftasks while designing them. The arrangement of tasks seems a little in a mess. In suchcase, it is also neglected that language application in "task chain" should be graduallyprogressive from easy to difficult point, and repeatedly consolidated. In meaningnegotiation, there is a lack of deeper meaning negotiation during interaction betweenteachers and students in classroom activities. The meaning negotiation only stands inthe superficial level in which the direction of interaction is only teacher to students. Inreal-world tasks aspect, teachers design activities and tasks which are almost pedagogictasks. Real-world tasks are actually in lack.Having found these problems in classroom activities practice on the basis oftheories related to TBLT, the author then combined with the real situation of Englishteaching in China and put forward some suggestions.First, Foreign TBLT framework should be combined with the real situation ofEnglish teaching in China. Second, English teachers should be advocated to be headteachers. Third, English teachers should strengthen their understanding to TBLT andimprove their language proficiency and their teaching response ability. Last, teachersshould pay attention to learning characteristics of students in junior high school whiledesigning activities such as their cognitive level, language proficiency, learningmotivation and class performance.After exploring problems in the English classroom activities practice on the basisof theories related to TBLT and giving suggestions with the combination of the realsituation of English teaching in China, the author hopes that teachers can have a betterunderstanding of TBLT, TBLT can be better implemented and the possible goodteaching results expected in TBLT can be achieved.