A Study On The Application Of Task-based Language Teaching To English Grammar Teaching In Junior High School

In the part of “Teaching Suggestion” of the 2011 English Curriculum Standards, task-based language teaching(TBLT) is recommended in China. TBLT,a further development of communicative language teaching(CLT) and the original result of The Bangalore Communicative Teaching Project(1979-1984), was first proposed in 1983 by Prabhu, a British-Indian linguist. It stresses “learning by doing”, communication-oriented learning and teaching with authentic materials.Compared with TBLT, the presentation-practice-production(3P), as a traditional approach, presents grammar rules in a simplified and clear way, which is widely used in language teaching for several decades. However, 3P approach producing grammar in an isolated way will not help students acquire English for communication. Therefore, the author attempts to improve the grammar teaching method in the classroom and applies Task-based Language Teaching to English grammar teaching in junior high school. The research questions are as follows:(1) Does the application of Task-based Language Teaching to the English grammar classroom arouse the interest of students in learning English grammar?(2) Does the application of Task-based Language Teaching to the English grammar classroom help the students do better in the tests of English grammar?61 participants from two classes in junior high school, Tangshan, Heibei Province, took part in the experiment for fifteen weeks. The experimental class with31 students is taught by TBLT, while the controlled class with 30 students is taught by 3P approach. The research instruments include questionnaire, tests and interview.The results of questionnaire and interview indicate that the participants in EC are more interested in English grammar learning than that in CC. According to the data collected by pre-test and post-test, the participants’ English grammar proficiency in CC do not make much progress. However, the participants in EC improve obviously the English grammar proficiency. The research finding also shows that compared with 3P approach, TBLT is an effective approach for English grammar teaching in junior high school.