Designing Tasks For Teaching English Reading In Senior Middle Schools

New English Curriculum Standard which was published in2001advocates task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach. As a new teaching approach, TBLT attracts people’s attention. TBLT stresses learning by doing, which is aimed to make students do things in English and complete stated tasks. Hence, students pay more attention to task itself, and language is only an instrument to help them complete the task. In the teaching practice of English reading in senior high schools, TBLT reveals its special value and significance.In TBLT English reading class, both teachers and students can enjoy the process of teaching and learning. Students express that they can not only get knowledge from such classes, they can also learn how to communicate and cooperate with others. In the process of completing tasks with classmates, students can not only display their own merits, but they can also learn from others, which will improve their mutual process. At the same time, cooperative learning can stimulate students’passion and enthusiasm in learning, and it can activate classroom atmosphere. Meanwhile, students’positive participation and reaction will make teachers get the sense of great achievement. That will arouse teachers’passion to devote more time and energy to designing wonderful tasks for students. The paper aims to probe how to design tasks for teaching English reading in senior high schools by the study of teaching cases.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter generally introduces the background, purpose and significance of the study. The second chapter gives a review of the theoretical basis. Firstly, it systematically reviews the theoretical basis of TBLT, essential features and research situation. Secondly, it introduces the definition, components and types of task. Thirdly, it presents the reading theory including its definition, the concept of reading competence and models of reading process. The third chapter mainly discusses how to design tasks for teaching reading from the theoretical view. It first knows the practical situation of English reading teaching and existing problems. Then it introduces task analysis and nine principles of designing tasks. Lastly, it points out five probable errors in designing tasks. The fourth chapter is the application of TBLT into English reading teaching, which is the important part of the paper. It proposes three teaching cases in detail and analyses their teaching effects. The last chapter makes a conclusion. It first gives a general conclusion, and then it states the teaching implications and limitation of the study.