A Study On The Application Of Task-based Approach In Senior High School English Vocabulary Teaching

Along with the promulgation and implementation of the2001“English CurriculumStandards for Full-time Compulsory General High School (experimental draft)”, our countryraises higher requirements of English vocabulary for high school graduate. Vocabulary, as thebasic element of language learning and communication, is the essential factor of listening,speaking, reading, writing and translating, and vocabulary is an important indicator of measuringlearners’ language application ability. However, vocabulary has become the most difficultobstacle of learners in language learning, examination and daily communication. Actually,vocabulary is also the key element for every English teacher to improve the quality of Englishteaching and efficiently improve the practical ability of English application.At present, task-based approach has been widely applied by foreign language teachers inteaching practice, especially in oral English and the teaching of reading process, and it is alsoexperiencing the inspection and testing of teaching practices. However, little has been appliedand studied in English vocabulary teaching area. And there is still not an efficient and practicalvocabulary teaching method that truly meets the learning law and students’ needs in China’sparticular education system.This research is aimed to study the implication of task-based approach in senior high schoolEnglish vocabulary teaching, and answer the following questions:1. Can task-based teaching method improve English vocabulary teaching in high school? Ifyes, in what ways?2. What are English teachers and students’ attitude towards task-based language teaching?The study chose98students from grade1of Number1Middle school of Yuanshi County inHebei Province as the subjects.48students of them are in the experimental class (withtask-based vocabulary instruction) and50students in the control class (with traditionalinstruction). By testing, questionnaire and interview, the author collected necessary data andcarried out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results.Results of the experiment indicate that task-based vocabulary teaching method has itsabsolute superiority, compared with the traditional vocabulary teaching method. In the processof completing tasks, the students consciously use their learned vocabulary and communicate orcooperated with other students so as to finish the tasks. However, questions of how toimplement task-based instruction in high school English teaching and how students andteachers should change their role become our further study focus.