A Study Of The Problems And Countermeasures In The Application Of Task-based Language Teaching

As a new trend of Communicative Language Teaching, Task-based Language Teaching appeared in1980s.The New English Curriculum Standard highly advocates the use of task-based language teaching (TBLT) TBLT, in which teachers involve the students’active participation in the task performance so as to help them learn English through doing things such as thinking, discussing, cooperating and communicating and so on. The task-based language teaching approach has its own advantages, the students are the center of the class, and the teachers are not the dominators but participants in the class. Students can learn, analyze, understand and use language by self-directed learning. The students gain the integrated language skills through communication in the target language in real life situations, complete the tasks with learning objectives, and construct the knowledge system of the target language through their own experiences. Employing TBLT in primary school English teaching can develop students’integrated language skills.TBLT has long been implemented in primary and middle schools English Teaching though its effect is not very obvious; therefore certain researchers conduct related studies on the reasons of its infeasibility. However, many books and articles have studied the implementation of TBLT in middle schools or colleges, yet few researches were conducted in primary schools. This thesis conducts the investigation of the existing problems of TBLT from the perspective of the application of task based teaching method in primary school. At the same time, suggestions and countermeasures for the improvement of TBLT are discussed to help primary school teacher to implement TBLT in the more effective ways.English teachers and144students at eight primary schools in Jinzhou were investigated, and the classroom observations were conducted as well. The present study explores the major problems of TBLT based on the investigations. Both the qualitative and quantitative analyses are used in the experiment. The data was collected from questionnaires, interview and class observation. The questionnaire was composed of teachers’questionnaire and students’questionnaire with the aim of finding the questions of applying TBLT in primary school English teaching. The details of the questionnaire were revised to adjust the features of primary school and primary school students. Interview, served as a supplementary instrument in this study, was carried out to investigate the teachers. Moreover, much direct information was collected through class observation. At the same time, some suggestions and countermeasures for the improvement of TBLT was discussed.The major problems are:(1) some teachers’ understanding about TBLT theory is limited. It is found that only11.4%of the teachers often read the books on TBLT, whereas25.7%never do that;(2) Some teachers do not extend the tasks outside the classroom;(3) It is difficult for the teachers to apply TBLT in big class;(4) Most of the classes are "student-centered". But according to the student’s investigation, it shouldn’t always be student-centered in TBLT class.43.1%of the students chose"teacher-centered, have activity when necessary";(5) Present evaluating methods are not enough and some methods are ineffective.80%of the teachers and80.4%of the students chose "Performance assessment+Exam". However, it needs further explorations on how to carry out performance assessment and the form of the exams.The results show that although TBLT can promote the student’s integrated language skills, many students are not confident and do not have much interest in doing the tasks. In order to improve the TBLT in teaching, some suggestions and countermeasures are discussed as follows:(1) some teachers should enhance their theoretical level of TBLT. Thus, they should read the books on TBLT as much as they can;(2) When designing the tasks, the teachers should understand the components and phases of a task, and know the principles of designing the task; and second, the students can be involved in designing the tasks;(3) The teacher can make good use of group work, that is, classifying the class into several groups, assigning each group a group leader, requiring each group to prepare a lesson to solve the problems by themselves;(4) The teacher and students should change the roles in TBLT class, that is, sometimes it is "student-centered" and sometimes it is "teacher-centered";(5) The teacher can apply three formative assessment methods, that is, teacher assessment, peer-assessment and self-assessment.