XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述
Literature Review Nowadays, Task-based Approach is widely used at home and abroad. Its belief is that language should be learned as close as possible to how it is used in real life. It emphasizes the combination of the form-focused teaching and the communication-focused teaching. Task is a key concept in Task-based Approach. In understanding the Task-based Teaching, it is important to explain the term ?task?. A great number of linguistics all over the world have attempted to give their own understandings of task. One of the early definitions about the term ?task? is given by Long (1985). “a piece of work undertaken for oneself of for others, freely or for some reward. Thus examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child… In other words, by ?task? is meant the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play and in between.” Prabhu (1987) gives his understanding of a task as “an activity which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process.\Willis (1996) regards tasks as “activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.” Many experts and scholars do a lot of researches about Task-based Approach form different perspectives and then provide many different opinions on the basis of different basic theories. (1) Prabhu?s Bangalore Project Prabhu has been recognized as the founder of Task-based Approach mainly because Prabhu, in 1979, first conducts teaching experiments about task-based teaching activities in Bangalore in southern India. Prabhu makes the contents in the teaching class into specific communicative tasks and students through the completion
of these learning tasks to learn. Task-based Approach is provided by Prabhu in 1983. According to him, “Students may learn more effectively when their minds are focused on the task, rather than on the language they are using” (Prahbu, 1983). Prabhu divides activities into three categories: rule-centered activities, formation-centered activities and significance-centered activities. Prabhu values the last activities most. He thinks that teachers do not need to teach grammar rules too much, letting students internalized grammar system in the language sense concentrated process. (2) Nunan?s model In 1989, Nunan provides the task design pattern of the communicative class. He thinks analysis of the communicative task model should contain: goals, input, activities, teachers? role, learners? role and settings. The intention of each specific learning task is the task goal, which can be divided into different types: communicative goals, language knowledge goals, emotional goals, social consciousness goals and so on. In terms of the sources of practice, they can be letters, newspapers, stories, movies and so on. (3) Jane Willis?s model In 1996, Willis provides that activities in Task-based Teaching emphasize that the language learning should make the language use as purpose and the meaning as center. Willis provides operational guidance for teachers to carry out the Task-based Teaching in the classroom. In the Jane Willis model, the traditional 3P method (Presentation, Practice, Production) we usually use is upside down. In the traditional PPP method, tasks are usually considered to be reflected in the final P (Production). However, in the Task-based Teaching mode of Willis, students complete the task of learning activities first. After the completion of the task, teachers strike students? attention to the language use in the teaching activities and make correction and adjustment about students? inadequacies appropriately. (4) John Dewey?s model American educator John Dewey puts forward the “student center, learning by
doing” education model on the basis of the pragmatic theory. He advocates that teachers should transfer the center of the teaching class from teachers and textbooks to students and teachers should guide students to master knowledge through taking part in various activities. As the famous linguistics Hethert H.Clark puts it, “Language is for doing” (Hethert H.Clark, 1997). Learning is not to memorize the isolated words, also not to memorize the decontextualized sentences, and not to memorize the boring grammar rules, but to use appropriate language to do things well in real life. Both vocabulary and grammar serve for “doing things” and “completing tasks”. In the teaching class, one of the teachers? tasks is to combine the vocabulary, grammar and language function organically in these activities of language use. In China, the study of Task-based Approach in English teaching begins in the late 90?s. In 1988, Xia Jimei, Professor of Zhongshan University, publishes an article entitled “Comparison of the Theoretical Basis of the Problem Teaching Model and the Task-based Teaching Model”, which first analyzes the concept of Task-based Approach. Later, in China, more and more scholars pay attention to Task-based Approach in English teaching. The National English Curriculum drafted in 2001 provides that the Task-based Teaching is a process which takes the specific task as the learning motivation, takes the completion of the task as the learning and reflects the teaching achievement through demonstrating the achievement of the task (but not test scores). With specific motivation, students can study independently and take the initiative to use the language to do things. They can naturally use the appropriate language in the procession of doing things and then develop their language communicative competency well. Lu Ziwen, working in the Education Research Center of Huazhong Normal University, implements experiments on the class procedures in the Task-based Teaching and then points out that teachers should take both of the real life tasks and the pedagogical tasks in the English teaching environment in China. In accordance with the basic task-driven concept of D. Nunan, Lu Ziwen provides that tasks in the
Task-based Teaching should improve students? learning interest and strengthen their learning motivation. In the teaching process, besides the language knowledge, teachers should give consideration to both the cultural information and the language skills. In May, 2003, Gong Yafu and Luo Shaoqian compile the book named “Task-based Language Teaching”. This book introduces basic theories of Task-based Approach from various aspects, such as the law of the language acquisition, psychology, social constructivism and so on. The purpose of this book is mainly to give teachers a preliminary understanding of the basic concept, main principles, common task types and design methods of Task-based Approach.
On Task-based Approach in English Reading Teaching
in Senior High School
By XXXX Prof. XXXX, tutor
A Thesis
Submitted to the Foreign Languages
Institute in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts at
XXXXUniversity
May 8th ，2013