The Application Of Task-based Language Teaching To ESP Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

TBLT (task-based language teaching) has became popular since1980s, whose basiccharacteristic is placing task at the center of the teaching method so as to organize teaching.TBLT aims at making students fully exert their subjective initiative, think positively, take partin teaching activities actively, cultivating their communicative ability in real life andimproving their language proficiency in the process of learning language by making theteaching more authentic and classroom more socializing. In China, TBLT has made greatachievements in general language teaching so far, but how to apply it into ESP (English forSpecific Purpose) teaching in higher vocational colleges is a research topic to be explored inthe thesis.The thesis introduces some relevant contents and the study of TBLT and ESP at homeand abroad, indicates the current situation of higher vocational ESP teaching and analyzes thefeasibilities of TBLT to higher vocational ESP teaching. Two hypotheses are put forward inthe thesis. The first one is that TBLT is more effective in improving students’ written Englishability and oral English ability in the practical ESP teaching compared with the traditionalteaching method. The second one assumes that TBLT is more acceptable and popular with thestudents and meanwhile it can arouse students’ much more learning interest and help thembuild more confidence in communication compared with the traditional teaching method.Based on this, one of ESP courses—Hotel English is selected as an example and71sophomores majoring in Tourism English from two classes are taken as the research subjectsto conduct one-term teaching experiment in Northeast Petroleum University at Qinhuangdaowhere the author works. In experimental class, TBLT is used in the whole process of HotelEnglish teaching and a teaching case design is given to detail how TBLT is applied in thiscourse according to the procedures of task import, task assignment, task implementation, taskdemonstration, task feedback on the premise of analyzing the students’ needs. In control class,the traditional teaching method is used and a specific teaching design is shown as well in thethesis. From the results of the analysis of the statistical data, it can be seen that there is nosignificant difference between the students’ written ability of two classes after applying TBLTand the tradition teaching method, but it is successfully proved that TBLT is more popularwith the students and more effective in arousing students’ learning interest, enhancing their confidence in communication and improving their English oral ability compared with thetraditional teaching method.