Effect Of Language Analysis

Task-based language teaching is generally regarded as an important approach to foreign language teaching. Despite a lot of previous studies on the general framework or some specific phases or stages of task-based learning (TBL). few studies have addressed the mechanism of the specific stage of language analysis in the framework. Thus, a teaching experiment was conducted to explore the effect of the stage of language analysis, in the TBL framework, on Chinese college students" development of English vocabulary and grammar, in the course of English intensive reading.98 College English learners from 3 intact lst-year classes of Southwest University participated in this study. The 3 classes were randomly assigned to 3 different teaching treatments. Class 1 served as the Control Class where the task-based teaching approach with no language analysis was adopted. Class 2 and Class 3 were 2 experimental classes. Class 2 served as Experimental Class 1. where the task-based language teaching approach incorporated a stage of the students’ own language analysis. Class 3 served as Experimental Class 2. where the task-based language teaching approach incorporated a stage of language analysis by the students and their teacher in cooperation. From Classes 1-3, altogether 90 students (30 from each class) were selected as subjects for the control group and Experimental Groups 1 and 2 respectively, based on their results in an English vocabulary and grammar pre-test given 1 week before the experiment.The 3 classes had the same teacher, class hours, course book, etc. The experiment lasted for 4 weeks. In the week following the experiment, the subjects received an English vocabulary and grammar post-test similar to the pre-test in structure. The subjects’ scores in the pre-test and post-test were analyzed with the statistic procedures of 2-independent-samples nonparametric test, and contrast test.The results of the experiment showed that the task-based teaching approach with language analysis was more effective than the task-based teaching approach without any language analysis, in improving the Chinese college students’ English lexical and grammatical competence. Besides, the study also found that the students and their teacher’s cooperative language analysis were significantly more effective than the students" own language analysis.The results have fundamental implications for college English teaching in China. The results suggest that in using the approach of TBLT to teach college English intensive reading, language analysis is an important stage, which might affect the learners’ development of vocabulary and grammar.