（英语语言文学专业论文）任务型语言教学在医学院校英语听说课堂中的运用研究.pdf

iii 中 文 摘 要 医学事业的发展对医学院校学生的英语水平提出了更高的要求。医学生要具备 较强的英语综合应用能力,特别是听说能力，才能使英语成为提高自己的专业水平， 促进医学交流的有利工具。然而，医学生课业负担繁重，学生课外可以用来学习英 语的时间和精力相对有限。因此采取合理的教学模式，提高英语课堂效率对医学院 校来说显得尤为迫切。 任务型语言教学是一种强调在“做中学”的语言教学法，旨在把语言教学真实 化，使学生在有目的的交际活动中学习和运用目标语言。任务型语言教学强调课程 应从学生兴趣、生活经验和认知水平出发，以任务为途径，综合所有听说技巧，通 过设置多层次有意义的任务，使交际过程也变得有意义，最大限度调动学生的内在 动机，让学生在教师指导下通过感知、体验、实践、参与和合作等方式实现任务目 标，感受成功。 基于此，本文将结合笔者所在医科大学的英语教学情况和医学生英语学习的特 点，在实验的基础上探讨任务型语言教学在英语听说课堂的中，是否能够有效的提 高学生的听说水平，调动学生学习的积极性，体现学生在教学过程中的主体地位和 教师在教学过程中的主导作用。 本次实验选择山西医科大学非英语专业本科二年级两个英语水平大致相同的 班级作为研究对象。一个为实验组（40 名学生） ，接受任务型语言教学；另一个为控 制组（40 名学生） ，接受传统教学法，经过一个学期的教学实验，作者通过前测和后 测，调查问卷的方法收集和整理数据。并且利用统计软件 spss18.0 对收集的数据进 行分析，实验结果表明任务型语言教学比传统教学法在医学院校的听说课堂中能更 好的激发学生学习的热情，进而促进其听说能力的提高。 关键词：任务型语言教学；任务；医学院校；听说教学 i abstrct the development of medicine calls more for medical students in english. english skills, especially listening and speaking, enable medical students to communicate effectively in their future studies and careers as well as in social interactions. however, medical students, under greater pressure from their medical subjects, dont have enough energy and time to study english out of class. therefore, it is urgent to search for an effective teaching method to increase efficiency of english classroom in medical colleges and universities. task-based language teaching focuses on “learning by doing”, aiming to actualize language teaching which enables students to learn and practice the target language purposefully in communicating activities. task-based language teaching emphasizes that courses offered should be targeted with combination of all kinds of listening and speaking techniques based on students interests, experience of life and cognitive level to maximize students internal motivation so that students can achieve goals and experience success through perception, participation and cooperation under the guidance of teachers. this thesis, based on experiment and in combination with teaching practice in where the author teaches and the characteristics of medical students english learning, explores whether task-based language teaching can be effective in enhancing medical students listening and speaking in classroom; in motivating medical students and in embodying student-centered teaching mode. the subjects of the experiment are 80 non-english major sophomores of shanxi medical university, 40 of which are in the experiment group with task-based language teaching and the other half in controlling group with traditional teaching method. data will be collected and sorted out from one semester experiment, results of pretest and post-test and questionnaire. ii according to the statistics and the amylases of collected data by software spss18.0, the experiment demonstrates that tblt is more popular than the traditional teaching method and more effective to motivate medical students interests in listening and speaking classroom and to improve their listening and speaking capabilities. key words: task-based language teaching; task; medical colleges and universities; listening and speaking teaching chapter one introduction 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 research background college english curriculum requirements (2007) issued by ministry of education indicates that the teaching aim of college english is to develop students ability to use english in a well-rounded way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future studies and careers as well as social interactions they will be able to communicate effectively, and in the meanwhile enhance their ability to study independently and improve their general cultural awareness so as to meet the needs of chinas social development and international communication. in addition, the appearance of computer based examination model of college english test (cet) further shows that the tendency of college english education should be shifted into developing students comprehensive abilities of using english and cultivating their ability to use english for real communication. however, the outcome of present college english teaching is far from satisfactory, especially in the aspects of english listening and speaking, and has not reached the goals of the requirements. most students cannot use the language appropriately in a certain social context and some students cannot even say a single correct english sentence or correctly catch the whole sentence. the whole truth indicates in colleges there are some defects in english teaching. this phenomenon is more obvious in medical colleges and universities. medical students have greater pressure from their medical subjects. the total number of courses they have to take in five years amounts to almost fifty, and they are preoccupied with lots of assignments, experiments and internship, which means they dont have enough energy and time to study english out of class. hence, english classroom seems more precious for medical students than students of other majors. in medical colleges and universities, freshmen and sophomores are exposed to english for general purpose (egp) course, and medical english as a selective course. however, most of egp teachers and medical english teachers still follow traditional teaching methods, which couldnt provide a language acquisition environment in accordance with medical students characteristics of english learning, so medical students feel bored, losing interests in english learning. therefore, it is urgent to search for an an empirical research on the application of task-based language teaching to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities 2 effective teaching method to increase efficiency of english classroom in medical colleges and universities. 1.2 research objectives task-based language teaching (tblt) focuses on “learning by doing”, aiming to actualize language teaching which enables students to learn and practice the target language purposefully in communicating activities. tblt emphasizes that courses offered should be targeted with combination of all kinds of listening and speaking techniques based on students interests, experience of life and cognitive level to maximize students internal motives so that students can achieve goals and experience success through perception, participation and cooperation under the guidance of teachers. these features point out a solution to the long-lasting problems in english teaching in china. according to xia jimei(2001) and yue shouguo (2002), it is commonly acknowledged that tblt is a new practical way to solve the existing problems in chinas english teaching. up to now, there have been many researches on tblt and some efforts have been made to apply it to the teaching practice, but most of the relevant studies and practices are on the application of tblt to reading, writing and grammar teaching, in elementary or middle school in particular. few researches are based on empirical tests to check the effectiveness of the application of tblt to college listening and speaking teaching, especially in association with listening and speaking teaching practice in medical colleges and universities. hence, the author attempts to apply tblt to english listening and speaking classroom in medical colleges and universities. based on the experiment, in combination with teaching practice in where the author teaches and the characteristics of medical students english learning, the author explores whether tblt is effective in enhancing medical students listening and speaking proficiency; in motivating medical students interests in english listening and speaking classroom. 1.3 significance of the research with communication and cooperation in medical field throughout the world getting more and more frequent, effective english course in medical colleges and universities is required to improve medical students english abilities, listening and speaking abilities in chapter one introduction 3 particular so that they will be able to communicate effectively in their future studies and careers as well as social interactions. however，in medical colleges and universities, traditional teaching methods play a dominating role in english listening and speaking class. teachers, give way to courseware, ending up being a broadcaster and repeater. students work as passive learners lacking in room for training and practice. and the interaction between teachers and students is hard to conduct. teachers cannot personalize their teaching in accordance with students aptitude while students find themselves hard and to be motivated and with few opportunities to be involved in class teaching activities. therefore, it is very significant to search for an effective teaching method adaptable to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities to effectively improve medical students listening and speaking proficiency. tblt may provide an effective way to better the teaching results. 1.4 the organizations of the thesis the thesis consists of five chapters. chapter one serves as a leading-in to the whole research. the background, objective, significance and organization of the research are introduced. chapter two is literature review concerning task-based language teachings background, theoretical basis, some typical definitions of tasks, a classic framework. traditional listening and speaking teaching method and medical students characteristics of english learning are also presented in this chapter. chapter three and chapter four talk about the experiment of applying tblt to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities. chapter three describes the design of the research, including the subjects, instruments and procedures of the research. and some samples classroom teaching procedure for the experimental group and the control group are also presented in this chapter. data collection and data analysis are demonstrated and described respectively in chapter four to show that the effectiveness of applying tblt to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities. meanwhile, results of questionnaire are also provided in this chapter. an empirical research on the application of task-based language teaching to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities 4 the major findings of applying tblt to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities are presented in chapter five. whats more, this researchs implications, limitations and suggestions for the future research are mentioned and analyzed in the final chapter. chapter two literature review 5 chapter two literature review 2.1 general introduction of tblt 2.1.1 what is tblt? according to richards and rogers (1986), tblt is defined as an approach treating the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in language teaching. from this definition, it is obvious that tblt emphasizes the notion of learning to communicate by interaction with purpose in english, the aim of which is to develop students language knowledge by engaging themselves in the communicative context. in other words, tblt focuses on “learning by doing”, aiming to actualize language teaching which enables students to learn and practice the target language purposefully in communicating activities, which means courses offered should be targeted with combination of all kinds of listening and speaking techniques based on students interests, experience of life and cognitive level to maximize students internal motives so that students can achieve goals and experience success through perception, participation and cooperation under the guidance of teachers. 2.1.2 background of tblt tblt is rooted in communicative language teaching, that is to say, it is the extension of communicative language teaching. in the late 1960s, ideas of communicative language teaching can be found in the changes in british language teaching tradition. the original purpose is that british applied linguists and researchers want to resist grammar-based approaches such as grammar translation method, the direct method. consequently, proponents of communicative language teaching put forward the following claim: expressing the meaning in the real context is the most feasible way to learn language. generally speaking, communicative language teaching advances that students shall use communicative way to learn language and treat it as a main tool; use daily language as its main learning content in real circumstances; use real communication as its learning aim (yuan 2002). from above, it is evident that communicative language teaching holds the view that language is acquired best through communicative practice, and three principles can be inferred from communicative language teaching practices. they are as follows: the communication an empirical research on the application of task-based language teaching to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities 6 principle (activities involving the real communication can promote learning), task principle (activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks to promote learning) and meaningfulness (language that is meaningful to the students can support the learning process) (richards and the level of tasks beyond learners ability is within teachers consideration. no matter how comprehensible input it is, however, mere input is not enough for second language development. long (1985) lays an emphasis on importance of interactive modifications that occur in negotiating meaning when a communicative problem arises. to put it in another words, long thinks that interactive input is better than mere input. nowadays, applied linguists accept that students shall need a lot of chances for language practice in and out of class. students should be given more opportunities to practice their language skills or to communicate with each other in order to convey or produce comprehensible input and output at the same time. 2） output hypothesis krashens input hypothesis, supported by many applied linguists and other researchers, stresses the importance of comprehensible input in second language acquisition. that is to say, a large quantity of comprehensible input can help students acquire second language easily. however, other linguists consider that only input is not sufficient for students to master new language, the remarkable representative is swain (1985). she attaches great importance to output. thus, swain proposes “out hypothesis” after the experiment french immersion programs in canada; and in her opinion, output is synonymous with “what the learner /system has learned”. in general, out hypothesis claims that the act of producing language (speaking or writing) constitutes, under certain circumstances, part of the process of second language learning. three functions of output in second language learning are put forward, namely the noticing function, the hypothesis-testing function and the met linguistic (reflective) function. in other words, swain doesnt agree with the argument that comprehensible input is the only true cause of second language acquisition proposed by krashen in 1984. she thinks that second language acquisition is obtained by output, which can provide more chances for students to identify some differences on language forms between their native language and the target language. in addition to swains out hypothesis, skehan(1998)also proposes six an empirical research on the application of task-based language teaching to english listening and speaking in medical colleges and universities 8 roles of output, namely, to generate better input; to force syntactic processing; to test hypotheses; to develop automatism; to develop discourse skills; to develop a personal voice. from skehans view, it is known that he emphasizes the interlaced relationship between input and output; and without production (output) expectations that correspond to the input that the students receive, the students conversational abilities in the second language will lag far behind their comprehension abilities. and ellis (1999) also maintains the view that language acquisition must experience from “input” to “output” for language acquisition significantly. therefore, these input and output ideas provided tblt with theoretical basis. 3） interaction hypothesis in the interaction hypothesis, long (1985) proposes that while both input and output are necessary for second language acquisition, in order to gain a greater understanding of how this works, one should focus more attention on the interactions language learners engage in. longs hypothesis lays emphasis on importance of comprehensible input in the form of conversational adjustments that are made as a result of negotiation of meaning in two-way communication. later, long (1991) holds the view that interaction hypothesis has been extended to take account of other ways in which meaning negotiation can contribute to second language acquisition, namely through the feedback that students receive on their own utterances when they attempt to communicate, and through modified output that arise when students are pushed to reformulate their utterances comprehensible and effective. according to the interaction hypothesis, interaction is necessary for language acquisition; that is, language is acquired when students positively engage in communicating in the target language, which is consistent with the notion of tblt “learning by doing”. just as nunan (1999) states, acquisition will be maximized when students engage in tasks that push them to overcome the limits of their current competence. in other words, interaction among studen