Looking at the present situation of English teaching in China, we may find that there exist some problems. To begin with, most English teachers have laid more emphasis on language knowledge teaching than cultivation of students’ comprehensive abilities of using foreign language because of the test—orientated education. And most English teachers in junior schools are not highly qualified and proficient in cultural aspect of the language. What’s worse, EFL learners often lack “the informal linguistic environment”(Krashen，1976:25)and thus have little chance to use the target language in daily life.
Therefore, task-based language teaching is gaining more and more attention and widely adopted by teachers in their lessons of English teaching to change the current situation of English teaching. So it is highly necessary to explore this advanced teaching approach.
This thesis makes an attempt to explore the experts’ theory on TBLT and its implementation. Through the thesis, it will be helpful to deepen the understanding of the TBLT and it can give enlightenment for English teachers to make better use of this method so that students can learn English better and develop themselves in an all-around way.
2. Literature Review源:自'751.·论,文;网·www.751com.cn/
In this part, the author will present literature review, including theoretical account of TBLT, a brief description of previous study of TBLT both in China and abroad and its significance.
2.1 Definitions of TBLT
Nunan (1989) thought “The communicative task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form.” He also analyzed the framework of communicative tasks from the following six aspects: goals; input ;activities ;settings ;learner role; teacher role. While, Skehan (1998) defined a task as an activity in which meaning is primary; learners are not given other people’s meanings to regurgitate; there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities; task completion has priority and the assessment of the task in terms of outcome. Richards (2001) considers a task as an activity or a goal that is carried out using language, such as finding a solution to a puzzle, reading a map and giving directions, making a telephone call, writing a letter, or reading a set of instructions and assembling a toy. Although there is no single widely-accepted definition of tasks, most scholars would agree that: tasks are activities with a clear outcome in the teaching process; communication tasks are classroom activities that require learners to understand and use the target language learned to communicate; tasks resemble communicative activities which people carry out in every day life and they are the reproduction of people’s communicative process; tasks are activities where learners use the target language to do things for a communicative purpose; tasks should be complete communicative activities, often with a non-linguistic outcome and to assess whether a task is successfully completed depends on whether it has an outcome.
2.2 Types of Tasks
Generally there are six types of tasks from the perspective of teaching:
1. Prediction tasks: before students finish reading or listening to the whole context, let them predict the content of the text according to the title, the segments of the text or the pictures
2. Jumbles tasks: teachers can upset the paragraphs and the order of the pictures and then let students rehearse in sequence. This requires students to understand the text and comprehend the coherence of the text.
3. Comparison tasks: this kind of learning task requires students to compare similar things, objects, and find out the similarities and differences between them. Contrast can exercise the students' ability of oral expression and judgment 任务型教学法在初中英语课堂的实施(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_67149.html