中学生交际能力与任务型语言教学方法The Junior Students’ Communicative Ability and Task-based Teaching In fulfillment of the course “Practical Project Design” .doc

the junior students communicative ability and task-based teaching in fulfillment of the course “practical project design”中学生交际能力与任务型语言教学方法acknowledgmenti would like to thank all teachers who have given me generous help,commitment and enthusiasm,which have been the major driving force to complete the current paper.first,i would like to thank my tutor wu junhui who has given her selfless assistance to me to write the paper.her patience,inspiration and encouragement have been driving me during the whole process of writing the paper. second,i should show my gratitude to all the other teachers in our department,for their good teaching in the past three years made me master the basic knowledge and sikks to analyze issues and express my views in this paper. third,i am so deeply moved by the generous assistance of both my friends and my classmates,whitout whom i could not have completed the paper.abstractthe present study presents a detailed report of a project implemented to solve the problem that lots of students fail to use english correctly when expressing themselves freely. it is hypothesized that if task-based language teaching methodology is used in english class, then the learners interest of speaking will rise accordingly, and their communicative ability will rise accordingly. this hypothesis is verified by a four-week practice of well-organized task-based teaching and learning activities.methodologically, four methods are used, and they are analytic method, cause analysis, questionnaire survey, and socratic dialogues.the key words: task-based language teaching methodology；english class; communicative ability.摘要本研究提出了一份详细的项目实施解决问题，很多学生不能正确地自由使用英语来表达自己。如果在英语课堂上使用任务型语言教学方法，那么学习者对说英语的兴趣会相应提高，他们的交际能力也会相应提高。四周的实践、良好的任务型教学和学习活动验证了这一假说。在研究方法上，采用四种方法，并分析法，原因分析，问卷调查，苏格拉底对话。关键词：英语课堂；任务型语言教学方法；交际能力； table of contentsthe cover(chinese).ithe cover(english).iiproject title.iiiacknowlegemend.ivabstract.v摘要.vi table of contents.vii1.introduction12.summary of the preliminary research12.1problem identification12.2problem analysis12.3project objective52.4project hypothesis52.5possible solutions52.6project rationale:53.full-scaled implementation of the solutions83.1through a step-by-step progression83.2learning by doing. 83.3building real-world settings do activities related to students personal lives.83.4give the students positive task-based assessments.94. research design:94.1 project implementation.94.2. data analysis135. project evaluation156. problem unsolved167.conclusion17bibliography18appendix a questionnaire one for problem analysis19appendix b a post-trial questionnaire20appendix c the timetable of the project22appendix d teaching notes23appendix e teaching diaries27process report28v 1. introductioni have been teaching english for three years .now im teaching in a junior middle school. in my teaching, ive found there are some problems, especially the problem that some of my students in rural areas have considerable difficulty while attempting to communicate in english, because they are not interested in speaking english. ive told them time and again the importance of oral english and urged them to take an active part in oral work. however, their interest in speaking english does not seem to be stimulated. i hope i can solve these problems that have troubled me through the research so that i can apply my knowledge and theory into practice.2. summary of the preliminary researchthis part of my study was conducted during sept.1oct.7 2011.2.1 problem identificationthe problem i have in my teaching is that lots of students are not interested in speaking english.so they have considerable difficulty while attempting to communicate in english.2.2 problem analysisin my opinion, there were four main reasons that accounted for students lack of interest in oral class. firstly, some students were afraid of being laughed by others because of their poor pronunciation and performance. secondly, some students wanted to say, but they didnt know how to get start and what to say. thirdly, some students particularly those who did not do well in the traditional grammar-oriented written exam lacked self-confidence in oral work. they thought that the oral class was only the showing- time for the “top-students”. fourthly, some students didnt think the oral practice is useful to their grammar-oriented exam, so they were not interested in it at all.the problems had been troubling me for a long time and now i was determined to work towards the solution to the problem. i started off by making an analysis of the problems.2.2.1 the analytic methodmy problem is : some of my students are not interested in “oral practice”.the phrase “some of” in my problem made me think of the other side of the issue: some of my students are not interested in “oral practice”. this, in turn made me think of these: why some dont, while others do? who are the some that dont? and who are the others that do? moreover, “my students” is in contrast with “my colleagues students”. this prompted me to made a chain of reflections: what about some of my colleagues students? is it also the case that they arent interested in oral practice? if, on the other hand, all of my colleagues students are interested, then my problem is actually caused by myself, not by my students. probably the training i gave students was poorly designed. 2.2.2 cause analysisi did the cause analysis on both “teachers side” and “students side”. i analysised the four main reasons of students not being interested in oral practice. teachers side that is myself.about the first reason: some students were afraid of being laughed by others becauseof their poor pronunciation.i didnt teach them the phonetic alphabet i had thought that, as the junior school students, they have studied english for more than three years, they should have learned the phonetic alphabet.so i think i should add some pronunciation training activities in my new teaching design.about the second reason: some students wanted to say, but they didnt know how to say.when these students told me that they were often not clear about what i told them to do or how they should do as my instruction in the oral class, i came to know that there was something wrong with my teaching-design. maybe the language i used was not clear? or the level of the language was much higher than the most of my students? or they didnt like the topic? or they werent familiar with the topic? etc. about the third reason: some “low students” lacked confidence, who are weak at thetraditional grammar-oriented written exam.i didnt encourage these students who think speaking can make them enjoy english, can make them have enough confidence. and these were very important to every english learners.about the fourth reason: some students didnt think the oral practice is useful to theirgrammar-oriented exam, so they were not interested in it.i didnt tell the students that the relationship between oral practice and grammar - you cant learn grammar rules well just by listening, understanding, taking notes or by remembering what the teacher teaches. if you speak and use by oral way these useful sentences which contain the key grammar after youve understood these grammars, you will master these grammars much better. and this will give you a big help on your grammar-oriented exam. the students sidethe purpose of some top students to do the speaking activities is just to improve theirspeaking ability. they would rather make speeches in front of the whole class or do theinterpretative exercises for the key sentences than care about if there is any useful grammar, because they are sure they can really do well on the exam without the oral practice. some weak students may think the oral practice almost couldnt help them on the grammar-oriented exam.others are accustomed to the traditional way of teaching and learning, that is, they are alwayswaiting for the teacher to tell them what to learn. as a result, they neither improve theirspeaking ability nor get high marks on the exams. some students think oral practice is just a waste of time. they say they can use the time tomore grammar exercises to get high marks.the choice of materials:if the materials tend to be too oral, though they will be very interesting to the students, they may be far from the text; on the other hand, if they are close to the exam, they would be too boring to capture the students. so i should consider the both sides of the materials. after that, i recognized that i should add some pronunciation training activities to improve students pronunciation; give the more clear instruction to let students know what to speak and how to speak; offer more encouragement to the “low students” with low marks on the “grammar exams” to grow confidence; try to design some oral activities to improve the students ability on the “grammar exam” .2.2.3 socratic dialoguesi cant let my students express in english.q: what do i mean by express? what sort of expressing do i expect of them?a: i want them to express freely.q: express what?a: usually the key sentences in their textbook.q: what purpose do they have in the expressing training?a: purpose ? to practice speaking english.q: isnt it like me surfing on line sometimes? at the times, i surfing, but do not actually read anything, simply because i do not have a specific purpose. i regret wasting time and money afterwards.a: oh, here is the point. when i ask my students to practice speaking english, the purpose is too general. i should give them some specific purposes, such as to practice the usage of a word, a sentences structure, or a tense, etc.2.2.4 questionnaire survey:i designed one questionnaire and distributed to my students before conducting the research and required that they finish it within 20 minutes. all of them, 22 students, returned their questionnaires that were left anonymous. when all these data came in, i made some statistical evaluation. the result showed that 100% of the students thought the oral practice was important and that about 80.5% of the students thought oral practice was quite necessary for their future development, which indicated that the students have been fully awarded of the importance and necessity of oral practice. but they might encounter difficulties, such as the language level is higher than the students, so they lost their confidence and interest.after making the above analysis, ive got the result that inadequate teaching design is mainly responsible for students lack of interest in oral practice. so in my future teaching, i will try to improve my oral work design through adding some items to improve the students pronunciation, giving them more encouragement and more detailed instructions for their speaking topic, etc.2.3 project objectivemy research objective is to develop my students interest of speaking english with task-based teaching, in order to develop their communicative ability.2.4 project hypothesisit is hypothesized that if task-based language teaching methodology is used in class, then the learners interest of speaking will rise accordingly, and their communicative ability will rise accordingly.2.5 possible solutionswith these reasons in mind. i have correspondingly provided some possible solutions which are as follows.1) study the teaching material in the textbook carefully, and design clear task goals .select task types according to general level.2) learning by doing. provide more opportunities to practice using english .stress cooperative learning, paying attention to pair work and group work.3) according to the different task topics, do activities related to students lives in our class building real communicative settings.4) give students positive task-based assessments.2.6 project rationale:2.6.1 what is task-based language teaching?the theory of communicative language teaching focuses on the process of learning and problem solving, and it is always organized around a variety of different kinds of tasks which are related to the real life and composed of chains of activities psychologically selected, graded and sequenced.2.6.2 what are tasks?a task is a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others freely or for some reward.a task is an activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language (i.e. as a response)2.6.3 what is the communicative task?it is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending manipulating form.2.6.4 what are not tasks?tasks do not include activities which involve language used for practice or display, such as “describe the picture using the words and phrases from the list below ”or “ask your partner if he likes the food listed here using the forms do you like ? yes, i do/no, i dont.” where there is no outcome or purpose other than practice of pre-specified language.2.6.5 the essential difference between tasks and exercisestask task has a nonlinguistic outcome.exercise an exercise has a linguistic outcome.2.6.6 types of tasks1) real-world communicative tasksit refers to the real-world things people do in everyday life or activities students use language in the real life .the real-world task based teaching emphasizes that teachers directly have students do all kinds of real-world tasks in class, thus raise students abilities which communicate in english.2) pedagogic communicative task pedagogic tasks are the materials and activities teachers and students actually work on in the classroom. adjusted to such factors as the learners age and proficiency level, these are series of initially simple, progressively more complex approximations to the target tasks.2.6.7 the components of a taskgoal input activities outcome teacher role learner role settingstaskcommunicative2.6.8 principles of task-based language teaching the overall purpose of task-based methodology is to create opportunities for language learning and skill-development through collaborative knowledge-building. the following principles can be used to guide the selection of options for designing lessons.1) ensure an appropriate level of task difficulty.2) establish clear goals for each task-based lesson.3) develop an appropriate orientation to performing the task in the students.4) ensure that students adopt an active role in task-based lessons.5) encourage students to take risks.6) ensure that students are primarily focused on meaning when they perform a task.7) provide opportunities for focusing on form.8) require students to evaluate their performance and progress.2.6.9 three principal phases in a task-based lesson.1) pre-task phase2) main task phase (task cycle)3) post-task phase the pre-task phase concerns the various activities that teachers and students can undertake before they start the task, such as whether students are given time to plan the performance of the task.the main task phase centers around the itself and affords various instructional options, including whether students are required to operate under time-pressure or not.the post-task phase involves procedures for following-up on the task performance.only the main task phase is obligatory in task-based lesson consists of the students just performing a task. options selected from the “pre-task” or “post-task” phases are non-obligatory but, as we will see, can serve a crucial role in ensuring that the task performance is maximally effective for language development.2.6.10 task-based language assessmenttask-based assessment should do three things .it should elicit performance that is directly related to the communicative objectives of the course, it should provide learners with opportunities to show what they can do with the language, and it should describe the criteria by which learners performance will be judged.performance criteria are a crucial part of an assessment procedure or item. these criteria need to be related to the important learning outcomes .in other words, they need to reflect those objectives that the task has been designed to assess. criteria should address a number of aspects of performance when assessing a group oral presentation .for example, the criteria would include:1) linguistic accuracy2) fluency 3) presentation style4) content 5) collaboration with otherscriteria can be relatively simple or quite elaborate .the simpler the criteria,the easier they are to use .however, more elaborate criteria provide more detailed and complete information on the learner. 3 full-scaled implementation of the solutionsthis part of my study was conducted during oct.8 2011nov.7 20113.1 through a step-by-step progression, design clear goals and select right task types for mixed-level classes.in order to guarantee that most of the students would be highly involved into the task-based activities, i studied david nunans concepts carefully. through the investigations, i found many students lacked confidence to speak english in class. therefore, i studied the students book and teachers book before class and designed a task plan. i tried to provide step-by-step language support and clear goals which mixed-level students could do, thus motivated them and build con