Application Of TBLT In English Reading Teaching In Junior Middle School

Reading is a major approach for learning English. Reading comprehension can help students understand materials. It is one of the four basic skills. The ability of reading can influence the ability of listening, speaking and writing. It can also influence the English level. It can test the level of language for learners. Among all kinds of language tests home and abroad, reading accounts most. Since China entered WTO, the chances of using English have been increasing greatly, and with the rapid development of society, English reading has become an effective means and approach, so the importance of reading is known to all. However, the traditional teaching model has influenced reading for a long time. English reading teaching still considers that language points, vocabulary items and examination are the most important aspects. Because of the test-oriented education, English reading teaching has become a mechanical model. Though reading teaching wastes plenty of time, teachers and students get low efficiency. All kinds of teaching approaches have risen around the world and Task-based language teaching was originated from the Bangalore Project, it was carried out by Prabhu in Bangalore area in the south of India. During the experiment, teachers asked students to finish some kinds of tasks. For example, teachers designed some pre-task activities which involve questions and vocabulary checking(e.g. What’s this? It’s a timetable. What does ’arrival’mean?), some questions were helpful to solve a problem such as finding train-timetable information. E.g. When does the Brindavan express leave Madras/arrive in Bangalore?(Prabhu32) TBLT requires teachers to previously design proper tasks, these tasks should be related to real life, should be authentic, and can arouse the interest of students. Teachers guide students to complete the tasks, students are able to acquire the target language through the practice, and at the same time, enhance the integrated linguistic competence. TBLT can solve the current problems successfully that exist in the reading teaching. Since National New English Curriculum Standard carried out in2001, Task-based Language Teaching has been advocated. According to National New English Curriculum Standard, it is very clear that the stress of reform is to change the over-explanation and teaching to grammar and vocabulary items and the neglect to ability of language application, emphasizes the interest of students, the life experience and the level of cognition(教育部1). and the aim is to develop the language comprehensive ability of students. From this, we can see that English teaching advocates the shift from teachers-centered to students-centered. In other words, it advocates the shift from how to teach to how to learn, emphasizes the process of learning rather than outcome, cultivates and develops learning skills, language points, affect and attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness. TBLT is welcomed as a new teaching concept, and it is recognized and applied by more and more English teachers. It has become the most influential teaching approach in the world at present. It advocates the concept of "learning by doing", and that means teachers design a series of tasks which are related to life. The tasks can motivate students’learning potential, make students become autonomous learners, so that students are able to acquire the language in the process of completing the tasks. One of the most crucial features of TBLT is that it involves students during the process of learning.The purpose of the thesis is to explore the application of TBLT in English reading teaching in junior school with the help of the theories of TBLT and reading and it is proven by an experiment that TBLT is feasible and effective in reading teaching. TBLT can arouse learners’interest to language learning and master reading strategies and skills, and cultivate good learning habits and effective learning methods; help teachers to change teaching thought. Teaching should pay much attention to comprehensive language ability. I hope that more teachers are able to drive their inspiration from the application of TBLT in English reading teaching, which can guide their teaching better in the future.The thesis is composed of four coherent parts. The first part clarifies the rationale of TBLT home and abroad, the research achievements, the definition and classification of task, the principles of TBLT and the model of TBLT. TBLT can be dated from the Bangalore Project. The project aimed at reforming traditional "structural syllabus" teaching and at the same time advocated "task-syllabus". Each unit was composed of different tasks. Teaching was through completing specific communicative tasks and emphasized natural input of language and learning language by practice. Students were absorbed in completing each task. Language learning occurred in the process of carrying out the tasks, in other words, it is by-product of completing communicative tasks or acquire language unconsciously by communication. It’s worth to mention that Prabhu distinguished three different types of language learning tasks and adopted extensively in the project. They are information-gap tasks, opinion-gap tasks and reasoning-gap tasks. These tasks can create natural language condition and develop meaningful communicative activities. Till now these tasks are also main types of TBLT. Prabhu submitted the report about Bangalore Project to British Culture Association in1982and put forward task-based approach in1983. As the theoretical basis of TBLT, second language acquisition, constructivism and the theory of "learning by doing" are mentioned. The Input Hypothesis contains the theory of "i+1"(Krashen1981,100).That means if the level of the learner is i, then the level of input should be i+1. Brown also thinks that teachers should create some chances to make learners understand more than they’ve mastered. Long pointed out that language could be acquired by "conversational interaction." He thought that "changeable interaction" was indispensable mechanism to language acquisition and it could make input comprehensible(77-100). Constructivism theory emphasizes students-centered. Every learner constructs knowledge depending on their own experience, so communication with each other can foster every learner to construct knowledge from many angles and inspect or correct their own understanding by cooperative learning to accord with the objective law. Besides constructivism emphasizes language learning should value situationality and cooperativeness. Teachers should choose the suitable learning materials according to learners’ level and characteristics(Wang Chencheng, Dong Xiaobo14) Only the meaningful materials can be experienced and cognized. Individual learning proceeds in a historical and cultural background. Society can support and promote individual development. Learning interaction is not only the interaction between individual and physical environment, but also interaction between individual and society.(Shu Dingfang, Zhuang Zhixiang216-217) Dewey advocated pragmatism and he put forward "students-centered, learning by doing" education model. Education should shift from teachers and textbooks to students. Teaching should guide students to learn by all kinds of activities. Vocabulary and grammar serve "completing tasks by doing". Teachers’task is to combine vocabulary, grammar and functional items in the activities of using language. From learning of TBLT theories, it is easy to sum up that all these theories emphasize "communication","meaning","authenticity","learning by doing", and these words reflect the core and main features of TBLT.(Wang Chencheng, Dong Xiaobo14) As all know, TBLT focuses on the task, so task plays a crucial role, about the definition of task, different scholars have different description. Breen(26) gives a very broad description of a task:A language learning task can be regarded as a springboard for learning work. Such a work plan will have its own particular objective, appropriate content which is to be worked upon, and a working procedure....A simple and brief exercise is a task, and requires learners to communicate or solve problems. Any language test can be included within this spectrum of tasks. All materials designed for language teaching through their particular organization of content and the working procedures they assume or propose for the learning of content can be seen as compendia of tasks. Prabhu thinks a task is designed by teachers, and its aim is to make learners think how to solve the problems using the information, at the same time teachers should "control and regulate that process"(17). Additionally, as a definition of tasks within task-based instruction, according to Candlin(1987), Nunan(1989), Long(1989), Skehan sums up that for a task, it must have meaning and relate to real life. It advocates learners to communicate with target language and assess the outcome. Nunan generalized five features about TBLT. The features are as follows:1. Encourage learners to communicate with each other with the target language.2. Choose authentic materials for learners, or the materials can be related to something in real life.3. Offer the learners the opportunities and pay much attention to learning process.4. Consider the authentic experience of learners as the important learning factor in the classroom.5. Combine the language activities in classroom with the ones out of classroom(1991,279). The principles of TBLT include the authenticity principle, the form-function principle, the task dependency principle, learning by doing and scaffolding. From Willis’ model for task-based instruction, we know that task-based instruction can be divided into three stages:Pre-task, Task cycle and Language focus(Willis1996,52). The first stage includes introduction to topic and task, the second stage includes task, planning and report, the third stage includes analysis and practice.The second part plans to introduce the rationale of reading, includes the definition of reading, the goals and purposes of reading in junior English, the four major models for reading and the signification of reading. For readers, reading activity is a process of positive thinking, understanding and accepting information and is also communication activity which involves both the writer and the reader. It is a process of positive thinking of intelligence. It is an important way to accept the information for people. According to National New English Curriculum Standard, the learners in junior middle school should achieve level3, level4and level5. The purposes of reading teaching can be drawn from the goals of reading.1. Get the structure and genre and learn some important language points in the reading materials, which can be helpful to writing ability.2. Get information and develop students’field of vision, which can make students feel the joys of reading.3. Improve the students’reading skills and cultivate students’ reading ability. The four major reading models,(the bottom-up model, top-bottom model, interactive model and schema theory) are mentioned. The bottom-up model advocates readers to get the information from the most basic language symbols, from letters to words, and then come to phrases, sentences and the whole passages. Top-bottom model requests readers to bring more information to reading, and can combine past experience to approve and correct prediction. Interactive model stresses the bottom-up model and Top-bottom often occur by turns or simultaneously. It depends on types of reading materials, readers’background knowledge and the language ability. Christine Nuttall talked about schema like that," Schema is abstract"(7), our experience is helpful to the formation of schema. When our schema is similar to the writer’s, we can understand the text better. Cultivating reading ability is significant. It can help readers to get information; For students in junior middle school, reading is the basic approach for them to learn English.The third part is to discuss the application of English reading teaching of TBLT and some effective tasks and classroom-activities, which is the most crucial chapter in the thesis. According to Willis’s task model, reading process can be divided into three phases, pre-reading phase, while-reading phase and post-reading phase. In each phase, the writer makes a study on the purpose of the task and lists the specific tasks, the design of task should be from simple to complicated, diverse and related to real life and experience of students. All the reading materials come from the textbook of "go for it". According to Willis’s TBLT model, during the pre-reading phase, teachers should put forward to the task, which can help students to know the learning goal, have a preliminary understanding to materials, activate the background knowledge and experience, get rid of the reading obstacles partly, stimulate the reading motivation, make students interested in the materials and guide students to come to the phase of reading materials. The aim of while-reading phase is to guide students to use reading strategies and skills and get a main idea through reading the material thoroughly. Students can input information by finding the specific information fast, searching the details carefully. Teachers should design some tasks to help students to understand the text thoroughly in this phase. Every task should be related to each other and the last one should be more complicated than the prior one. The aim of post-reading is to consolidate and apply the key words and sentence patterns that occur in the passages, and is also considered a feedback from what students have learned and the learning result. Post-reading phase is the process of internalization, migration and use of knowledge and reflect the process from input to output, from reading to writing, can also reflect the overall ability of language. Teachers can organize students to carry out various forms of testing activities, such as the retelling of passages, discussion, performance, debate, interview, writing and completing the passage according to the beginning given. Generally speaking, the activities of post-reading is how to expand and apply the knowledge learned and information obtained. The design of task in pre-reading phase includes how to arouse interest, how to raise questions and make students think about the questions. The design of task in while-reading phase involves how to use mind-mapping, how to guess the meaning of the new words in reading materials and get rid of the obstacles. The design of task in post-reading includes how to retell the text, the performance of students, discussion and writing after reading. Each design is well illustrated by an example which comes from the textbook. It is worth to mention the roles of teachers and learners. Teachers act as the designer, organizer, controller, observer, participant, conductor, researcher. While learners act as the collector of information, independent learner, organizer and cooperator. Teaching assessment is essential in TBLT. Assessment should be a wide diversity or multi-dimensional. Combine formative assessment and summative assessment. Teachers can assess learners, and learners can assess teachers. Self-assessment and mutual-assessment is combined.The fourth part is about an experiment of English reading which lasts one semester, includes the aim of experiment, the procedures and the collects of data and analysis of experiment at the same time, the material of interview will be shown as well as the findings. Before experiment, the level and score of experimental class and control class are similar, but after experiment, the level and score of experimental class is higher than the ones in control class, and it can be concluded that most students like TBLT in reading teaching better than the traditional reading teaching from the result of interview. Compared with traditional reading teaching, TBLT is a better way to develop the reading ability of students and even the ability of all-round application of the language. The findings are also helpful to further research and reading practice. By experiment, the motivation and interest of students enhanced greatly, the atmosphere of classroom has become more relaxing and freer than before, teaching has shifted from teacher-centered to learners-centered, teacher’s roles and learner’s roles have changed. Some consideration and thought has risen due to the experiment. For instance, some teachers in developing area are still unknown or unfamiliar to TBLT, so the concept of TBLT should be promulgated all over the country, and teacher training should be reinforced. Teachers should select proper tasks which are feasible in the classroom, including the type of task, the time which complete the task. Teacher should have over-all realization to groupwork, groupwork has lots of advantages in the aspect of involving students to learn the target language and training the ability of cooperation, on the other hand, the students with learning difficulties may not engage in the task or activities. How to make them join in the process of completing tasks and how to group effectively and rationally, that’s a problem which teachers should consider more. Teachers should teach according to students, and choose other suitable teaching approaches.The conclusion comes last. Willis’s TBLT model can be applied in Junior English reading class. Teachers can design pre-reading activities, while-reading activities and post-reading activities. Pre-reading activities can make students active and become interested in the reading materials. When while-reading activities are carried out, students can use reading strategies and skills, such as scanning, skimming, details reading, and get the main idea about the text, and search the specific information fast and detail information carefully, so as to process and deal with the information. Post-reading activities can train the mind of students and expression effectively; It’s also beneficial to output and comprehensive ability of language. Language focus can help students review and consolidate what they have learnt. The series of activities designed by teachers are related to students’real life closely. The principle accords with the model of TBLT in the National Standards for English Curriculum. From the full research, practice and the experiment, it is proven that TBLT can motivate the students, develop the ability of team-work, involve students into learning process, develop and foster the ability of reading comprehension and even the ability of all-round application of the language. In different phases, both teachers and learners act different roles. Teaching assessment is also indispensable. Teacher training should be enhanced especially in rural areas, so that the teachers can learn and apply TBLT proficiently. TBLT can not only be applied in reading teaching, but also can be applied in listening, speaking and writing teaching. Theory should be related to practice. Each teaching approach has its own feature, so other teaching approaches should be chosen and applied reasonably. Teachers should make the teaching approaches serve teaching.