The application of TBLT in teaching reading.doc

1. introductionthe newly issued national english curriculum standard explicitly pointed out ： english curriculum must face all student, pay attention to quality cultivation, focus on each students emotion, stimulate their interests in learning english, help them to build sense of achievement and self-confidence in learning, keep them improving the comprehensive language ability in the learning process development, enhance humanities capabilities, cultivate the spirit of innovation. the new curriculum advocates task-based teaching mode, which lets students, under the guidance of the teachers, through the perception, experience and practice, participation and cooperation, realize the goal of mission and feel the success.students in the era of information explosion must have good reading ability, hence training reading ability of english syllabus as the goal is suitable for the social needs. once students have independent reading ability, they also possess the ability of self-study for their future university study or self-study lay a solid foundation. therefore, to improve reading ability is a goal each student must achieve. in some extent, people use a language is to complete the various tasks. the task-based teaching activities is to let learners by using language to finish all kinds of language activities; students are the subject of learning activity ; it is not a machine language training, but emphasize learners participation and exchange and gain knowledge and experience in finishing tasks, tend to cultivate students self to accomplish the task and strategies by executing tasks.the task-based language teaching (tblt) has been widely debated and studied in the field of the second language acquisition and the teaching english as a foreign language(tefl) research. many researches have proved that it is a creative and effective teaching approach and nowadays, more and more english teachers in china are getting conscious of its importance and applicability in their teaching practice. the first emergence of the term task in the second language teaching arrangement is concerning communicative language teaching and second language acquisition, and the task-based language teaching began in the 1980s. task-based language teaching has become a widely-spread promising methodology because it reveals the social function of the language and the essence and goal of the foreign language teaching and takes the development of the learners communicative competence (hymes, 1972) as the core of foreign language teaching. in short, the study of task-based teaching is meaningful, because our countrys reading is exam-oriented education in a degree, caused students low reading speed and low reading efficiency. tbtl has its advantages to solve problems, in traditional teaching , through changing training methods, teacher-oriented into students-oriented teaching style.2. literature review2.1 task-based language teaching (tblt) 2.1.1 the definition of task-based language teaching (tblt)what is a “task”? a task is a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward.it is meant what people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between. (long 1985:89)nunan (1999:24) defines task-based language teaching as follows:task-based language teaching is an approach to the design of language course in whicn the point of departure is not an ordered list of linguistic items, but a collection of tasks.skehan defines task-based language teaching and learning as follows:” instruction in which learners are given tasks to complete in the classroom makes the assumption that transacting tasks in this way will engage naturalistic acquisition mechanisms, cause the underlying inter language system to be stretched, and drive development forward”(1998:55).as one of the approaches of communicative teaching, tblt was put forward in the 1980s. some theorists and methodologists often call it task-based instruction or task-based approach as well. the aim of it is to make language classroom approximate to the target language environment. through completing tasks, instead of learning from teacher or books, students understand how native speakers use language to communicate. it provides students with opportunities to use the target language in their daily life.2.1.2 features of tbltnunan(1991:279)summarized the five features of tblt as follows:1. an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.2. the introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.3. the provision of opportunities for learners to focus not only on language, but also on the learning process itself.4. an enhancement of the learners own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning.5. an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom.in zhen lis (2007:39) paper, she summarized the features of tblt in reading as follows:1. the input reading materials are more authentic than those in old textbooks.2. the input reading materials come from different ways. even students may bring a lot of reading materials to the classroom.3. tblt reading classes mainly have two purposes: one is to train students reading abilities, such as skimming, scanning, finding out the main idea or topic sentences etc. the other is to use what they have learned in the text to solve problems that may happen in daily life.4. understanding is emphasized in task-based reading classes rather than language points.5. students do tasks by getting, processing and transforming information.6. the assessment of how students learn the passage depends on the completion of reading tasks.2.2 the theoretical basis of tblt2.2.1 psycholinguistics basisthe task-based teaching method from the soviet union based psycholinguistics vygotsky and psychological linguists followers about language and learning theory. vygotsky stresses the role of learning as well as teachers and companions to promote the individual learning. task-based teaching method provides a theoretical basis for language teaching, and has the important enlightenment:the individual masters and applies the knowledge in social interaction, interaction, discovery, and learning. the traditional teacher-centered mode must be reformed. people have gradually recognized, language is not a simple combination of formal rules, but a dynamic, note-centered open system. language is a process that language skills comprehensive application. apply learning task to organize teaching, strengthening the language application and second language acquisition process fully embodies the language communication essence.2.2.2 constructivismthe core of task-based teaching method is” learner-centered and people-oriented, its psychological basis is constructivism , constructivism is a theory relate to knowledge and learning .constructivism thinks that knowledge is temporary, developing and the objective, is constructed and influenced by learners from heart ,society and culture. the peoples knowledge is developing with experience, knowledge is restructuring and reconstructed experience; is experience, finding and the creative process, learners can through participating in activities and the implementation task to promote ones own knowledge of the restructuring andbuilding. once they experienced the meaning of joining in the activities and the success of constructing new knowledge, they would be more active, thus speeding up the internalization of language.constructivism as well as advises by interaction and cooperation to construct, knowledge, particularly emphasis learning through social interaction and cooperation, thinks isolated learning cannot cause the growth of knowledge, the ability to learn only through and interacting with abounding people and partners to activate various inner factors. as fosston stated, teachers treat constructivism as the basic theory must abandon the thought that meaning can be instilled through symbols, and the view of putting knowledge can be separated from real context. constructive teaching should provide students opportunities, let them participate in real context and a communicative meaningful activity, by themselves to find knowledge, raise questions and build their own patterns, concept and strategies, this mode can be regarded as a small society, learners can participate in activities there, build discourse and reflection. the task-based teaching method advocates characteristics and multifaceted interaction, which just can meet these requirements.2.2.3 second language acquisition theorysecond language acquisition theory seeks to quantify how and by what processes individuals acquire a second language. the predominant theory of second language acquisition was developed by the university of southern californias steven krashen. krashen is a specialist in language development and acquisition, and his influential theory is widely accepted in the language learning community. there are five main components of krashens theory. each of the components relates to a different aspect of the language learning process. the five components are as follows:the acquisition learning hypothesisthe monitor hypothesisthe natural order hypothesisthe input hypothesisthe affective filter hypothesis2.3 relevant research about the application of tblt in english readingin some relevant researches, the researchers derive a number of questions/hypotheses from their review of theoretical literature on the subject at hand. they study the relationship between a variable such as a teaching method (also called independent variable) and a second variable, such as test scores (dependent variable) on a test of reading ability, and test those dependent variables out through the exposure of assigned subjects to control and experimental group. the data yielded by the experiment are then subjected to statistical analysis, which enable the researchers to assess the probability that the independent variable did have an effect on the dependent variable. after that, a questionnaire about students reflection toward implementing tbi is designed, distributed to both classes, and finally collected by the researcher. the researcher has found that application of task-based instruction to reading teaching could improve the reading ability in senior high school. another finding is that learners are in favor of tbi.3. the application of tblt in teaching reading3.1 the current situation and purpose of teaching reading in recent reading test for senior high school students, the basic principles that the test designers usually focus on discourse analysis and its application as well as communication. under the guide of those principles, the reading tests, therefore, display the following features: the difficulty level of reading comprehension has been increased, the factors expressed in detail: the test focus has shifted from form to meaning; .the weighting that knowledge and ability occupies in test organization steadily rises in reading test. at present, most teachers have realized the changing, and have the belief, however, do not keep pace with times, that is, they still use the traditional teaching method spoon-fed type. for example, their teaching procedures always keep following steps: students learn new words; teachers explain the text; students begin to read the text; students complete the reading exercises; teachers make a comment on the answers. reading is a process with active thinking, understanding and accepting information, is also a kind of complex intelligence activity. view from the surface, reading seems to be a one-way communicative activity; actually it is the communicative activity between the author and the reader. the author puts their thoughts into the words symbols and expresses out, it is a coding process made up of phrases into sentences and discourse language. readers reading materials, it consists of two different developing stages: the perceptual knowledge stage of recognizing text symbols and the rational knowledge stage of understanding the content, absorbing information, creative thinking coding .reading aims at understanding the authors thought in words, so comprehension ability is the most important read ability. the comprehension level can be divided into three levels: and critical comprehension. literal comprehension just know the surface meaning of the text, inferential comprehension requires readers can clear understanding of the authors implication; critical comprehension require the readers express their opinions about the text. the new national english curriculum standards have raised some requirements for the reading teaching in senior high schools: firstly, to accelerate language learning, facilitate communicative competence, and develop reading habits. in the content, high school teachers should offer students various opportunities to expand english vocabulary, master grammatical rules and how to master the whole meaning of the article; then, to increase students communicative awareness, cross-cultural awareness, and learning reading strategies through the teaching of reading. in the new national english curriculum standards, “communicative awareness includes social strategies, motivation, affective strategies, confidence, cooperative awareness, and patriotism; and cross-awareness is composed of cultural knowledge, cultural understanding, and cross-cultural communicative awareness ; learning strategies include cognitive strategies, communication strategies, and resources strategies” (educational department 2001:6). in addition, the new national english curriculum standards advocates tblt. in the research, “learners should promote their potential and creativity to enhance their language proficiency” (educational department 2001:2), actually, teachers are the guide to make students apply strategies in the reading. 3.2 the advantages of tblt in teaching readingprof. chen lin (2002) indicates there are many advantages for using tbi as follows: 1. task-based learning has a more specific goal that is favorable to stimulate students motivation for learning. in the traditional english teaching, many teachers focus on the vocabulary, phrases and grammar, caused the depressing atmosphere, in tblt, students are given many reading tasks to complete, during the process, students levels of knowledge, comprehension and background are different, so in order to finish their own tasks, they must to collect information, take various measures to solve the problems. in this way, students exploring ability and motivation have been explored.2. in the process of completing tasks, its easy for students to see the progresses made by them and feel success, thus favorable to encourage them to study. in the tasks, every student has a certain role to play. that is to say, all students are given opportunities to perform, they can exchange opinions, express feelings and explore new ideas. the pattern could greatly motivate students to learn autonomously. they can learn how to cooperate with groups, promoting the unity spirits. by this way, students are easy to see the value of learning and to experience the success of learning, which can stimulate their interesting in english reading and can make them more active in reading learning.3. in the process of task completion, students can feel deficient in learning, thus helpful to arouse the desire for self-perfection. at the same time, students can gain more than one language knowledge and skills that could used to solve problems in real life.so, since 1980s, tbi has been highly recommended by many applied linguists and foreign language educators. this approach is gradually gaining more popularity in foreign language learning and teaching in our country. task-based instruction is recommended as effective approaches for primary and secondary schools in english curriculum standard issued by ministry of education in 2001, and believed to improve greatly the current teaching situation and task education. however, so many english teachers in senior high schools still use the traditional way of language teaching, especially in teaching reading. they have accustomed to break the english reading into fragments. some teachers even change it into grammar class. therefore, students reading is listening and sleepy, having replaced by teachers instruction or explanation, in this way teachers try their best to make every words or sentences in text understood. but their teaching styles are not ideal as expected in comprehending text as a whole, such as: organization of text, writers intention, meaning of the reading material, and so on.3.3 the principles of the task design1. the authenticity principlegongyafu (2003) in his work has mentions that the task design should offer learners a clear and veritable environment in which students can experience and master language application. in the design, the relationship between linguistics form and communicative function are clear to the learner. besides, the environment should give students authentic topic or information from the real world like conversations, interview, gestures, and news, ect.2. the form-function principlethe meaning versus form (or fluency versus accuracy) debate is no longer a discriminating factor among teaching approaches because meaning and form are assumed to be essential for learning (long,1991; long &robison, 1998). in language learning form and function are equally important. learners should have a clear idea about the relationship between form and function. teachers teaching language in ways that make form and function relationship transparent. 3. task dependency principlea series of tasks in a lesson