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I.

Introduction

As we all know, reading plays an important role in language learning. We can

obtain knowledge, get information, and take pleasure from reading. But a certain number of people find it difficult to read some materials, especially for the students in the suburban junior middle schools. They are unable to read effectively, and frequently fail to comprehend the texts. On the one hand, the students have poor English knowledge, vocabulary and improper reading habits, on the other hand, many teachers, nowadays, deal with the text sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, the students only learn the knowledge of English. As a result, the training of the students‟ reading comprehensive abilities is often neglected and a reading class generally becomes teacher-centered and boring. Chinese typical learning style poses great difficulties for students to turn their attention from language knowledge to language skills, especially dealing with the problems of using language they have learned in real life. Then how to solve these problems?

New English Curriculum Standard (2001:15), issued by the Ministry of Education, states that “Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) should be advocated”. It requires that “teachers should avoid using simple teaching methods to teach language knowledge, they need to adopt task-based language teaching as possible as they can”. That is to say, advocating application of TBLT to English language teaching can change the traditional teacher-centered teaching model into the student-centered and teacher-guided teaching model. Its purpose is to cultivate the students‟ learning and research abilities, arousing the students‟ initiative in learning and stimulating the students‟ learning motivation.

As to the application of TBLT to English Language teaching in China, many scholars have written articles about it. Researchers or scholars such as Yuan Changhuan(2002), Jiang Qiuyang(2004), Yuan Surong&Fang Le(2004) and Liu Xingmin(2007), etc. have made some achievements in this field. Based on the survey conducted in Shisun Middle School in 2009, this paper proves that TBLT is an

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effective way to solve the problems mentioned above. Though studies about the application of TBLT to reading teaching are less than enough, some instructive suggestions for further teaching will be made as well.

II. Introduction to Task-Based Language Teaching

2.1 About task

2.1.1 Definitions of task

What exactly is a „task‟? Within the literature, „task‟ has been defined in a variety of ways. Here are some influential and representative definitions taken from Task-based Language Learning and Teaching (Ellis, 2003).

(1)Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985)

A task is “an activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language, i.e. as a response. For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape, and listening to an instruction and performing a command, maybe referred to as tasks. Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task. The use of variety different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to make teaching more communicative…since it provides a purpose for classroom activity which goes beyond practice of language for its own sake.”

(2)Crookes(1986)

A task is “a piece of work or an activity, usually with a specified objective, undertaken as part of an educational course, at work, or used to elicit data for research”.

(3)Prabhu(1987)

A task is “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”.

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(4)Breen(19)

A task is “a structured plan for the provision of opportunities for the refinement of knowledge and capabilities entailed in a new language and its use during communication”. Breen specifically states that a “task” can be “a brief practice exercise” or “a more complex work plan that requires spontaneous communication of meaning”.

(5)Nunan(19)

A 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. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right.”

(6)Skehan(1996)

A task is “an activity in which: meaning is primary; there is some sort of relationship to the real world; task completion has some priority; and the assessment of task performance is in terms of task outcome.”

(7)Lee(2000)

A task is“(1)a classroom activity or exercise that has:(a)an objective obtainable only by the interaction among participants,(b)a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and(c)a focus on meaning exchange;(2)a language learning endeavor that requires learners to comprehend, manipulate, and/or produce the target language as they perform some set of work plans”.

(8)Bygate, Skehan, and Swain(2001)

“A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective.”

To sum up, the writer‟s definition of task is as follows: A task is an activity that the students use the target language to obtain their own English knowledge. Through completing tasks, students understand how to use language to communicate.

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2.1.2 Types of task

Many researchers sort tasks from different dimensions for their own purposes. For example, Willis (1996) groups tasks into six types as follows:

(1)Listing tasks

Listing tasks tend to generate a lot of talk as learners explain their ideas. Such tasks as: family survey, family tree, family photos, family birthdays, teacher qualities, and manger qualities, etc.

The processes involved are: Brainstorming, in which learners draw on their own knowledge and experience either as a class. And Fact-finding, in which learners find things out by asking each other or other people and referring to books, etc. The outcome would be the completed list, or possibly a draft mind map.

(2)Ordering and sorting tasks

These tasks involve: Sequencing items, actions or events in a logical or chronological order; Ranking items according to personal values or specified criteria; Categorizing items in given groups or grouping them under given headings; Classifying items in different ways, where the categories themselves are not given.

(3)Comparing tasks

The processes involve: Matching to identify specific points and relate them to each other; Finding similarities and things in common; Finding differences.

(4)Problem solving tasks

Problem-solving tasks make demands upon people‟s intellectual and reasoning powers, and, though challenging, they are engaging and often satisfying to solve.

Real-life problems may involve expressing hypotheses, describing experiences, comparing alternatives and evaluating and agreeing on a solution.

(5)Sharing personal experiences tasks

These tasks encourage learners to talk more freely about themselves and share their experience with others. The resulting interaction is closer to casual social conversation in that it is not so directly goal-oriented. For that very reason, however, these open tasks may be more difficult to get in the classroom.

(6)Creative tasks

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These are often called projects and involve pairs or groups of learners in free creative work. Out-of-class research is sometimes needed. Organizational skills and team-work are important in getting the task done. The outcome can often be appreciated by a wider audience than the students who produced it.

In addition, Nunan (19:40) classifies two kinds of tasks: real-world task and pedagogical task. Ellis (2003) classifies tasks as reciprocal and non-reciprocal tasks. In practice, it is not easy to place a task into one single type, because it may belong to several types at the same time.

2.2 About TBLT

TBLT has become a catchword in contemporary EFL(English as a Foreign Language)teaching. Although TBLT is widely used in middle schools in China, it remains a new thing to most suburban middle schools.

2.2.1 Definition of TBLT

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.

In brief, TBLT is an English teaching approach in which learners learn English through doing.

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2.2.2 Features of TBLT

Nunan(1991:279)sums up five features of TBLT:

 An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the

target language.

 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.

 The provision of opportunities for learners to focus not only on language,

but also on the learning process itself.

 An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important

contributing elements to classroom learning.

 An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation

outside the classroom.

In Zhen Li‟s (2007:39) paper, she sums up the features of TBLT in junior English reading class 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.

2.2.3 Principles of TBLT

According to the previous theories and research findings, a set of principles in task selection should be complied with for the purpose of the systematic development

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of underlying inter language and effective communicative performance. Nunan describes five principles in TBLT in 19.They are:

(1)The authenticity principle

Classroom activities should parallel the \"real world\" as closely as possible. Since language is a tool of communication, methods and materials should concentrate on the message, not the medium.

(2)The form-function principle

The 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.

(3)The task dependency principle

A series of tasks in a lesson or unit of work forms a kind of pedagogical ladder, each task representing a rung on the ladder, enabling the learner to reach higher and higher levels of communicative performance.

(4)Learning by doing

Learning by doing motivates students to fulfill their potential. Learners master the language by using it communicatively in the classroom, although they still have to learn grammar and memorize vocabulary. Long and Crookes(1993)said that a task-based approach sees the language process as one of learning through doing——it is primarily engaging in meaning that the learners‟ system is encouraged to develop.

(5)Scaffolding

Scaffolding is a process of \"setting up\" the situation to make the child's entry easy and successful and then gradually pulling back and handing the role to the child as he becomes skilled enough to manage it.

Skehan(2001)offers a set of five principles for TBLT as well. These principles are: choosing a range of target structure; choosing tasks which meet the utility criterion; selecting and sequencing tasks to achieve a balanced goal development; maximizing the chances of focus on form through attention manipulation; using cycles of accountability.

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2.2.4 Components of TBLT

Many experts are attempting to identify the elements of a task. Among them, Nunan‟s(2002)point is more acceptable. He suggests that elements making up a task are task goals, input data, learning procedures, and they are supported by teacher and learner roles and the settings in which these tasks are undertaken.

In Ellis‟s(2003:21)Task-based language learning and teaching, they are described as follows:

Goals: The general purpose of the task, e.g. to practice the ability to describe objects concisely; to provide an opportunity for the use of relative clauses. Different levels of language users should have different goals.

Input: The verbal or non-verbal information supplied by the task, e.g. pictures; a map; written text. Nunan(2002)considered that input in TBLT refers to the spoken, written and visual data that learners work with in the course of completing a task. Data usually includes two parts: the first is from the teacher‟s instruction. Before assigning a task, the teacher will give as much information as possible to make students clear about the procedure and the basic requirements. The second part is taken from material in the text book or from some other source, even from learners themselves.

Procedures: The methodological procedures to be followed in performing the task, e.g. group vs. pair work; planning time vs. no planning time. The teacher should pay more attention to students‟ task-solving ability and arrange tasks ranging from the simple to the complex. Skehan(1998)also used accuracy and fluency as central constructs in his work on TBLT, and added a third element-complexity. He found that different types of task generated different degrees of accuracy, fluency and

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complexity.

Besides the elements mentioned above, teacher and learner roles in a given setting are also essential in a task. Teacher roles and learner roles are two sides of a coin. Problems are likely to arise if there is a mismatch between the role perceptions of learners and teachers. The teacher acts as not only a facilitator and a participant but also an observer and learner. And the learner is mainly a negotiator and partner.

III. Introduction to Reading Teaching

As the writer is going to discuss the implementation of TBLT in English reading class, it‟s necessary to have a brief review about the theory and the reading models and types.

3.1 The notion of reading

K.S.Goodman‟s idea about reading (1970:135) is that “reading is a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”. Later, he put forward another definition:

Reading is a receptive language process. It is a psycholinguistic process in that it starts with a linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning, which the reader constructs. There is thus an essential interaction between language and thought in reading. The writer encodes thought as language and the reader decodes language to thought(1975:12).

As to other definitions, Dechant‟s definition is preferred owing to his specifying reading as “building a representation of text by relating what is on the page to one‟s own fund of experience”(1982) .

To sum up, reading is not only a simple language activity, but also an activity of thought. It is a complicated process of transferring language symbol to the

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understanding through psychological cognition. It is a process of drawing information from words.

3.2 Reading Models

(1) Bottom-up model

Gough(1985) is one of the proponents of this reading model. In the opinion of Gough, reading is a process of letter-by-letter visual analysis, leading to positive recognition of every word through phonemic encoding. Lexical syntactic and semantic rules are then applied to the phonemic output which itself has been decoded from print. It is believed that the reader builds up a meaning from the black marks on the page: recognizing letters and words, working out sentence structure. That is to say, the reader needs to identify letter features, link these features to recognize letters, then combine letters to recognize spelling patterns, link spelling patterns to recognize words, and finally proceed to sentence, paragraph and text-level processing.

Researchers claim that teaching should lay emphasis on the “bottom part” and teachers are required to spend time in teaching learners the orthographic rules with the expectation that once sound-letter relationships are learned, meaning will follow. It is a part-to-whole processing of a text. Learners learn letter-sound associations and then words. After that, they recognize the spelling patterns of these words. They continue to the finish the whole text.

(2) Top-down model

The top-down model studies language as a whole and enables readers to grasp some important information of a reading selection without worrying about the individual components of language. In this model, readers make predictions about the text on the basis of their own idea and experience. In other words, readers already have their minds at the beginning of reading.

Guided by this model, teachers lay much emphasis on comprehension of meaning in texts, assuming that with meaning under command, learners can deal with the linguistic components during the reading process. Learners are encouraged not

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only to read appropriate for their level but also to use language in ways that are related to their daily lives. In this model, comprehension takes precedence over skills such as spelling and word-recognition (Liu Xingmin: 2007). It is common for the young learners to guess what occurs on the page based on their understanding of the text, which makes reading become more interesting.

(3) Interactive model

Both bottom-up and top-down models have contributed much to our understanding of reading comprehension，but their descriptive flexibility greatly weakened by their directionality in explanation，operating exclusively either from the bottom-up or from the top-down. Therefore，the interactive model is proposed to reconcile the difference. This model believes that reading is not just an active process，but an interactive process. The most influential model of interactive perspectives is the one given by Rumelheart, D. E. (1977). It stresses an interaction between readers and the author, and interaction between the knowledge stored in the reader‟s mind and the written information. The model informs us that a reader is not a passive information receiver, but an active information searcher and re-constructor. The meaning of a text is acquired by the reader‟s interaction with the author.

3.3 Types of Reading Task

In reading teaching, tasks may fall into three categories: skill-oriented tasks, comprehension-oriented tasks and application-oriented tasks.

3.3.1 Skill-oriented tasks

Developing learners‟ reading skills is one of the main purposes in reading teaching. Tasks implemented by the strategies are essential to acquiring a basic skill. They are: Predicting; Skimming and Scanning; Information Transfer; Making; Comparing (Gao Panxiang: 2007).

For example, perhaps the two most valuable reading strategies, skimming and scanning. When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to

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have a general idea of it, to know how it is organized, or the intention of the writer. There are many situations where we do skimming. If we read a piece of newspaper, we usually read very fast to get the main information and only spend time on those items that we are interested in. When scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so. We simply let our eyes wander over the text until we find the information that we are looking for. These skills are very useful and important. Besides searching for specific information, we can also ask learners to scan for vocabulary. Each text must have some words related to the theme. Similarly, we can also ask learners to scan for certain structures, such as tense forms, discourse connectors, or particular sentence structures.

3.3.2 Comprehension-oriented tasks

People usually read for information or for entertainment. Unsuccessful comprehension may block the gateway to information and fun. Thus, it is advisable to design varying tasks based on the reading materials in use. Teachers have to motivate learners with cycles of comprehension tasks, such as setting the scene, formulating questions, summarizing reading materials, role-play. They will get learners familiarized with the cultural and social background knowledge relevant to the reading text. By summarizing the materials, learners can distinguish between different levels of importance in the text: main ideas, supporting ideas, and details. As to the role-play, it is a very common language learning activity. It is valuable for it can motivate the learners and also let them have the chance to practice the newly learned language.

Moreover, the two types of tasks above are more „Real-pedagogical tasks‟ according to Lu Ziwen (2003). Goals of such tasks/activities are not merely for learners to reach conclusions or have a list of correct answers, but for learners to explore and experience language and develop skills for independent reading.

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3.3.3 Application-oriented tasks

Learning by doing has proved to be an effective learning method. It is possible for learners to be experience the simulated situations in the classroom. Teachers have to be inventive or imaginative. They have to design tasks and flexible language-practicing activities which are relevant to the reading material, resemble the daily life and go in harmony with the learners‟ psychology. The tasks can fulfill several functions, whether they are used in an extensive or an intensive reading context. A list of tasks or activities that fit these requirements is available. They are: interviews, discussions, debates, surveys, compositions, speeches, and projects etc, which can help the newly-acquired language learner stay productive. Generally, these types of tasks are combined with extensive reading so that reading is only a portion what the learner is expected to do, which effectively extend the reading in class to out of class. For example, learners might use the information read to prepare a persuasive speech and convince someone to agree with their position. Therefore, we can say application-oriented reading tasks usually integrate other skills and abilities.

IV. The survey conducted in Shanghai suburban middle school

4.1 Introduction to the background of the survey

Shisun Junior Middle School is located in Nanhui, Pudong New Area. The students are mainly from rural and migrant workers‟ families. Their English abilities are not good. They are especially poor at English reading.

4.2 Participants

This survey includes 110 participants from Class One and Class Two, Grade Two of Shisun Junior Middle School. There are 55 in each class. Class Two is taught in the

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traditional teacher-centered way, while Class One is taught in the TBLT way.

4.3 Instruments

The analysis was based on the result of the final exam paper. What‟s more, the students were required to fill in the questionnaire and the author also made an interview with their teachers.

4.3.1 Questionnaire

The questionnaire (Appendix1) was used to explore students‟ attitudes and reaction to the TBLT in the class of English reading. Based on their answers, the author can know whether TBLT is effective and welcomed by the students.

4.3.2 Interview

Before the experiment, the author made an interview (Appendix2) with the teachers. According to the result, traditional teachers are always examination–oriented and the teachers who adopt TBLT often pay more attention to practicing the communicative approach.

4.4 The results

From the final test, the author got the following scores and the distribution of the scores.

Table 1

Scores of the final-exam (The total score is 40)

Score Class One Class Two

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Mean 27.88 22.91 Highest 37 34 Lowest 17 15 SD 6.48 5.85 Table 2

Distribution of the scores

Score Class One Class Two

As is shown in Table 1, the mean score of Class One is higher than Class Two by 4.97. It is obvious that the reading ability in Class One is higher than that in Class Two. It can easily be seen from the tables that the students in Class One surpass those in Class Two. They have a much faster reading speed and the students do better in reading test.

What‟ more, the differences can be seen from the followings: (1) Attitude and interest

According to the result of the questionnaire, it is quite clear that the students in Class One have more interest in English learning and hold a positive attitude. About 82.32% of the students in Class One say that they are fond of English and 60.53% of the students in Class Two say that they like English. In Class Two, 20.46% of the students say that they find it boring and difficult to learn English and dislike it and 19.01% of them have a neutral attitude to English learning. Compared with Class One‟s students, Class Two‟s students show less interest.

As to their teachers, Class One‟s teacher states that, “Although it requires much more time in setting different tasks, we often get unexpected results. Most students‟ abilities have been improving gradually.” While Class Two‟s teacher is inclined to the traditional style, she thinks that under the great pressure of exams there is no need to spend time in carrying out TBLT. What‟s more, the number of the students of each class is about 55 and it is impossible for everyone to be engaged in the tasks.

(2) The materials

Class One‟s English teacher says that in addition to the text book, she also has her students read the English newspaper, magazines, watch TV programs such as

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0-19 5 9 20-31 26 32 32-40 24 14 Outlook, ICS. What‟s more, when she finds some funny and meaningful stories, she would also print them and then give the materials to the students. They enjoy doing it.

However, Class Two students only use the text book. Their teacher holds a view that most students have poor reading abilities. More attention should be paid on the basic ones.

(3) The methods

Class One also has a public blog where they can share feelings, things happened in daily life, beautiful essays, comments on current affairs, etc. together. All these are written in English. If the students have any problems, they can email their teacher. She will try her best to help them. They have a close relationship with each other.

When it comes to the methods, Class Two‟s teacher believes that grammar rules, sentence patterns and language points are the most important things for the students to learn in English reading class. The students are used to the traditional method of teaching. When they have reading classes, the students listen to the teacher passively and take some notes quietly. Thus, they have little chance to practice using English to communicate with others.

(4) The effect

There is no wonder why Class One get higher marks than Class Two do. As we can see from Table2, the number of 32-40 in Class One is 24 but in Class Two it is only 14.

Class One‟s teacher tells proudly to the author that five of her students got prizes in the School‟s English Festival. Nowadays they can not only read faster and more effectively than before but also use English freely. Their English abilities have been improved. But Class Two students are lack of active motivation and strong interest. They don‟t have enough confidence in English learning. They are going forward step by step.

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V. The Findings

5.1 Advantages

First, TBLT creates an active classroom climate. It cultivates the student‟s ability of using the English language, promoting the students‟ creativity and ability of doing things. The various tasks offer students a great deal of flexibility. As is known to all that learning language is not only for the language itself, but also for the meaning or use of the language.

Second, TBLT is student-centered teaching. It pays much more attention on students‟ needs, styles and goals. This model can help to enhance a student‟s sense of competence. In the class, the students are provided with plenty of opportunities to be engaged in activities, while the teacher is more like a patient listener rather than a talkative speaker.

Third, TBLT makes it possible for students to learn how to use English in the real world. They can always feel what they are learning is very near to their life. There is no doubt that English is learned to prepare the learners for real world communication, and it should be taught and learned in the way as it is used in real world. TBLT fulfills this aim quite well.

Fourth, with group work and pair work in TBLT reading classes, students also have a more reliable learning environment. Their self-confidence has also been greatly improved. The learners are able to enjoy and share success with their classmates. Their positive feelings will be encouraged as well and their sense of achievement will make them feel more interested in English learning.

5.2 Disadvantages

First, it seems quite difficult to apply TBLT in a big class. Large classes hinder the smooth flowing and implementation of tasks. It is impossible for everyone to be engaged in the class. In most cases, suburban junior middle school students just like

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listeners because of their lower level of English.

Second, it takes too much time to carry out TBLT. Books about the theories of TBLT and the experiences of the application of TBLT in reading teaching practice are not adequate so far. It will take teachers more time to design the tasks and think out proper ways of how to use this teaching method effectively in reading class.

Third, evaluation of TBLT is difficult. TBLT requires teachers to develop the learners‟ integrated language abilities including listening, speaking, reading, thinking, reasoning, autonomy, cooperation, etc., but traditional tests can‟t fulfill this task (Liu Xingmin:2007). A systematic evaluation standard is needed.

Finally, sometimes it is not so easy to bring the whole class under control when adopting TBLT. Students may chat about other things in Chinese instead of English. They often don‟t keep to the point and make much noise. We can not make sure that every student is engaged in the class.

5.3 Suggestions and future studies

Firstly, the completion of TBLT depends largely on the teachers‟ overall abilities. The teacher is supposed to play the role of a planner and organizer of the class. Just as what has been discussed above, sometimes it is not easy to control the whole class. Consequently, TBLT requires higher linguistic and management abilities.

Secondly, TBLT calls for teachers‟ strong creativity. If the teacher is limited to the traditional teaching methods, he/she is unlikely to adopt the TBLT.

Thirdly, the teachers are required to spend much time and effort designing and carrying out of the tasks. They should consider the types, themes, features, difficulties of tasks and so on. In addition to those factors, the condition of the tasks and organization of the class should also be taken into consideration.

Fourthly, some of the tasks can be done after class. The tasks can be completed by individuals or in groups. It can cultivate their self-learning abilities and make them learn the importance of cooperation.

Fifthly, TBLT requires the teacher to have the ability of solving different

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problems immediately. In the process of performing tasks, various unexpected problems may appear. If they are not solved in time, it will have a bad influence on the effectiveness of the class.

Finally, when adopting TBLT, teachers should pay attention to the students‟ psychological characters and the class situation as well. He/she can apply education and psychology theories to the class to motive students. The teachers had better praise the students a lot and make full use of the praising words, which can stimulate their desire for learning. Therefore, the students will feel successful and confident.

The present study mainly serves to make the point that TBLT is effective in reading teaching. However, the study is not perfect. Here are some suggestions for further studies in future.

(1)Future research can be conducted on larger samples.

(2)Further research can be carried out on the designing and organization of tasks for listening, speaking and writing.

(3)Future studies can be made on more reliable theories of TBLT.

(4)Future studies may be conducted on how to set up a task-based assessment system for TBLT.

(5)Future studies may be concerned with the disciplines in classes.

VI. Conclusion

Although the results of the study have indicated that the TBLT is effective, it seems that a couple of questions remain unsolved. This paper has its limitations. On the one hand, the survey was conducted in one school. The samples are a little small, not large enough. The tests and questionnaires may not be objective enough to reflect the fact and the problems. On the other hand, since the author doesn‟t have practical teaching experience, most theories and results were taken from others.

The application of TBLT to reading teaching in suburban junior middle school

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is proved to be effective to some extent. The teaching reforms in ELT in China have posed great challenges as well as opportunities. Thus, keep in pace with time, and we are able to get both our mind and practice injected with vitality.

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Appendix

Appendix 1

关于对实施任务型教学活动态度的调查问卷

亲爱的同学：

你好！我是上海师范大学外国语学院的研究者，现正进行实施任务型教学法态度的调查。你的回答将有助于进一步了解任务型教学在英语阅读教学中的作用。对于你的回答我们将严格予以保密,仅用于科学研究。谢谢配合。

请在A、B、C、D、E五个答案中选出一个认为符合你的情况，写在每个陈述之前。

A=完全不符合我的情况 B=通常不符和我的情况 C=有时符合我的情况 D=通常符合我的情况 E=完全符合我的情况

学校： 班级： 性别：

1通过参与课堂活动，我发现学习英语的兴趣更加浓厚了。 2在活动中同学们互相帮助，我发现英语对我来说变得有些容易了。 3通过完成阅读任务，我发现我的英语阅读速度提高了。 4在完成课堂学习任务的过程中，增加了我用英语交谈的欲望。 5通过完成课堂活动，我的英语书面表达能力也正在提高。 6我喜欢和我的同伴一起完成任务。 7我喜欢用英语与伙伴进行交谈和讨论。 8我希望在英语课堂上有更多的任务活动。

9我希望老师能集中在课文上，比如说，先解释课文。 10我希望在课堂上老师多讲，学生少活动。

11我认为老师布置一些任务时非常麻烦，并且很浪费时间。

12我的英语老师除了让我们阅读课本外，还要求我们阅读英语报纸、杂志等。 13只要有时间我就会看英语类电视节目，如ICS,CCTV-9等。

14我认为初中英语课堂教学不适合用任务型英语教学，因为那样会使课堂显得太乱。

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Appendix 2

访谈提纲

对采用任务型教学和传统教学的教师提出以下问题：

1、请问您在实际的教学过程中采用的是传统的教学还是任务型教学？ 2、请谈谈您采用的教学方法的优势？是否也有不足之处？

3、请问您怎么看待任务型教学的？您可否预测一下在贵校实施的效果如何？ 4、您所教的学生是否知道任务型教学？他们是否能接受并且喜欢？

对采用任务型教学的教师进一步提出以下问题： 1、 您是如何设计任务的？

2、 您是否还为学生提供课外学习英语的途径？ 3、 您觉得采用了此教学法后效果是否明显？ 4、 请您具体谈谈此教学方法的优缺点。 5、 对于任务型教学您是否有什么建议？

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