Task-based Language Teaching Approach In Improving Reading Abilities Of Senior High School Students In Countryside

As for English learners, reading is not only the most important way to acquire the necessary information but also the basis and insurance to improve students’language techniques including listening, speaking and writing. One of the most important goals that New Curriculum of High School English sets is to help students develop their reading ability. Besides, English reading ability development is the most important task for high school English teaching. Therefore, English reading ability is important from this point of view. Besides, nowadays, students begin to realize that English is more and more important and put a lot of efforts in learning English. This is not only because English is the inseparable course in National College Entrance Exam, but also because English is probably going to be one of the most important skills that employer will look for when students look for a job in the future. In every English exam, reading comprehension is the decisive factor for high and low English score, which counts for30%to40%of the total score. However, most students are not good at reading comprehension. Therefore, it is urgent for schools and teachers to help students improve reading ability especially students in countryside. It is crucial for teachers to exert all efforts to help students improve their reading abilities, especially for students in countryside.As far as the students of my school is concerned, which is located in countryside of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, they learn English pretty late and have low competence of English compared with students in the city, so it is hard for students to grasp proper methods of learning English. In addition, students do not have good reading habit and are lack of appropriate reading methods. On the other hand, most of teachers have to focus on the basic knowledge, like grammar and words. It is difficult for teachers to apply better English teaching methods other than traditional methods due to various factors. In the process of learning English, students are still not really interested in English reading and have no competence of reading and low English scores, let alone having high ability of using English in reality. The reason for that is mainly because students do not grasp proper method of English reading and teachers do not have proper teaching method to improve students’ reading ability so that students put a lot of efforts without ideal test performance. Students are frustrated by the low scores. Therefore, it is urgent for teachers to find the effective method to help students improve English reading ability and to improve English scores eventually. Therefore, in order to arouse students’ interest in learning English and improving reading abilities, this thesis will apply task-based language teaching approach in teaching reading, which is still new and innovative in countryside.In order to achieve the anticipated goal, this research will conduct the teaching experiment on students in my class in countryside for one semester. One is experiment class, the other one is control class. In order to testify that compared with traditional teaching method for English reading, task-based language teaching approach can improve students’ English reading ability, the task-based language teaching approach will be applied on students in experiment class, yet the traditional method will be used on students in control class, reaching the conclusion through data comparison. To be specific, first of all, pre-test of reading comprehension, whose total score is40, will be conducted on experiment class and control class just to get to know overall situation of students’ reading ability. The pre-test shows that there is no significant difference between the scores of experiment class and control class. Besides, the questionnaire will be conducted on students in two classes from the beginning of the semester. The questions involve reading so as to get to know the problems of reading comprehension and further design tasks and teaching plans to accomplish reading teaching according to specific situation. Third, in the following English reading teaching, task-based language teaching approach will be applied on experiment class, the traditional method will be used on control class. During the process, three typical and representative topics will be chosen from the textbook and different tasks will be designed accordingly. Different students reading activities in before-reading, while-reading and after-reading phases will be designed. Finally, at the end of the semester, post-test of another reading comprehension, whose total score is40, will be done on experiment and control class to check the effect of task-based language teaching approach on English reading teaching. Then compare the data and scores of pre-test and post-test, it can be shown that the post-test mean score of students in experiment control, which is25.8909, is higher than mean score of students in control class, which is21.0909.Besides, English post-test reading score of experiment class, which is25.8909, is highly improved compared with the pre-test reading score, which is19.9273, increased by29.93%. However, the pre-test score (20.3849) and post-test reading score of control class (21.0909) are not significantly different, only increased by3.4%. The conclusion then can be reached: Task-based language teaching approach is effective in improving English reading ability of the students. After one semester of teaching experiment, one-on-one interview will be conducted on students. The interview shows that most students consider task-based language teaching approach is effective, who begin to show interest in reading, actively participate in designed tasks and whose reading score is improved. Most importantly, overall speaking, students in countryside has improved interest for English learning and active participation in class activities through task-based language teaching approach.