The Application Of Task-based Teaching To English Vocabulary Teaching In Junior High Schools

Vocabulary accumulation is the most basic and most important part in foreign languagelearning．The command of vocabulary has a direct effect on students four fundamentallanguage skills—listening，speaking，reading and writing and Students’ foreign languagecommunicative competence. Therefore，teachers must attach great importance to vocabularyteaching．Nowadays，in junior high school English class，although a lot of time and energyis spent on teaching vocabulary, the situation is far from being satisfactory．It is necessary tofind a more effective method to solve the problems in junior high school English vocabularyteaching．Task-based instruction is an important model of language teaching based on a study ofsecond language acquisition and foreign language study theory. This instruction takes thespecific tasks for drive and motivation, the completion of the tasks for the learning process,and thereby shows teaching achievements by way of reflecting the outcome of the tasks.Task-based instruction model translates the basic principles of language use into meaningfulclassroom teaching. Based on specific purpose and language project, teachers design a varietyof teaching activities; students complete language learning tasks through these languageactivities, and ultimately achieve the purposes of learning and mastering language.Task-based instruction fully reflects the teaching concept of student-centered and attachesimportance to student-oriented of cooperative learning, thus developing their independence，cooperation and innovation．Task—based vocabulary teaching is designed to require the students to complete certaintasks individually or in pairs or in groups in certain situations，and encourage them tocooperate while fulfilling certain tasks．During the completion of these tasks，the students ale experiencing a real language situation, and they are able to remember master and evenexpand their vocabulary by doing things and using the language to communicate withothers，thus developing their independence，cooperation and innovation．To help the studentsremember all the words effectively, this paper based on task—based teaching theories，putsforward task-based vocabulary teaching strategy to explore into how to teach English wordsmore effectively．In this paper，the author has proposed seven kinds of task-basedvocabulary teaching designs．All of the designs are aimed to improve the efficiency of thestudents’ learning process，to improve teaching methods in an English vocabulary teachingclass，as well as to strengthen the students’ ability to use the English language freely．Duringthe completion of these tasks，the students are experiencing a real language situation, andthey are able to remember master and even expand their vocabulary by doing things.In order to prove whether TBA is effective in English vocabulary learning and teaching(VLT) in junior high school, the author conducted an experiment in two classes, one is theexperimental group under TBA, and the other is the control group under traditional teaching.One semesters later, by dealing with the data from the tests and a questionnaire in t-test, theauthor finds that there is a distinctive difference between the two groups–the experimentalgroup overpasses the control group in the tests of vocabulary size and English proficiency.During the research, the author adopted qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. Theresponse to the questionnaire reflects that most students have accepted TBA and experiencedthe merits of it, such as: they become interested in English class; they can communicate withother people in English.The survey also revealed a received task-based teaching students inextracurricular can spend more time in learning English. Therefore, the task-based teachingmethod in English vocabulary teaching in junior high school is beyond doubt. It caneffectively increase the students’ English Vocabulary. The completion of the task canstimulate students’ communicative motivation and ability, it also promotes the students’independent learning ability.