Abstract:
Task-based approach in recommended as an effective teaching method by English curriculum Standards for Secondary schools. In this thesis, we will discuss how to use TBLT to teach reading in high school. This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is a brief review of TBLT. In this part we analyze the definition and the features of the task. Second, we analyze the present situation of reading teaching in high school, we point out that there are some malpractices in traditional reading teaching, so we advocate the teachers to use TBLT. Key words: task; reading; TBLT 中图分类号：H319.3
摘要：英语课程标准认为任务性教学 关键词：任务；阅读；任务性教学 Introduction
Reading plays a more and more important part in today’s English teaching and learning in senior middle school. English reading competence is the basic prerequisite for developing other kinds of language competence. Especially for the students in China, without the natural language environment, English reading is not only one of the main basic skills, but also the important way to develop other language skills. In addition, emphasis on the development of reading competence, to some extent, means introducing to students the practical self-taught ways of learning English. And they can benefit a lot from their reading ability after their graduation from schools. So we should pay special attention to the English reading teaching and learning in senior middle schools. However, due to the deep-seated traditional teaching theories and methods, there are not many efforts to be made to the research of reading teaching. As a result, the teaching of reading in senior middle schools is not so satisfactory, and the students have various difficulties in English reading comprehension in their studies and examinations. Students’ reading barriers have directly influenced their integrating language competence. The problems of reading teaching among senior middle schools are serious and need to be improved as soon as possible. Task-based language teaching can solve the problems that appeared in reading teaching. In this thesis we will discuss how to use TBLT to teach reading in high school. 1. Brief review of task-based language teaching 1.1 Definitions of a task
Task-based approach in recommended as an effective teaching method by English curriculum Standards for Secondary schools (2001), an official document of ELT for secondary schools by the Ministry of Education of China. Following the guidelines of the curriculum standards, textbooks (2003) of Junior English for China and Senior English for China are claimed to be task-based with many tasks,
which prioritize meaningful communication through English channels. As a matter of fact, many teaching-learning materials have also made the similar claim. It seems that the application of task-based approach to materials development is quite fashionable in China today.
What is task? The most general definition given by Long (2000:5) is “A piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward. Thus, examples of task include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form…in other words, by “task” is meant the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between.”
Four features of a task: A task involves an activity of some kind. It has a specified outcome when it has been completed. It may require language comprehension or language production or both. It requires that learners focus their attention principally on meaning rather than form. (Long, 2000) 1.2 Features of TBLT
PHD.Lu concludes five features of TBLT
a. TBLT is a new form of communication but not a replacement.
b. TBLT emphasizes teaching process. It tries to let the students participate in the learning process and form an ability of using English.
c. TBLT emphasizes the developing the ability of using English to communicate. d. TBLT emphasizes that true life task should be regarded as teaching centered activity.
e. TBLT demands that teaching activity is beneficial to the development of synthetically language using ability. 1.3 The advantages of TBLT
According to Liu Qian (2003), the advantages of TBLT include most of the following points: It is helpful to students to stimulate their interest of learning. It is helpful to form the curricular target. It is beneficial to develop subject function. All the students can be taught effectively.
Adopting TBLT is helpful to broaden the range of knowledge. Adopting TBLT is beneficial to develop students in full scale.
It is beneficial to help the students to get the ability of learning in all their life. 2. The present situation of reading teaching in high school First of all, let us look at a case of reading teaching as follows:
There are fifty states in the United States. The largest in population is California; the largest in area is Alaska. Alaska is the smallest in population and Rhode Island is the smallest in size. The oldest states are the ones along the Atlantic coast. The newest states are Alaska and Hawaii. Alaska is also the coldest state.
California and Florida are the warmer. Henry and his family live in Seattle, a big city, on the Pacific coast. But Los Angeles and San Francisco, also on the Pacific coast, are larger than Seattle. Henry's cousin, Susan, lives in New York. It is the largest city in the United States. Thousands of people visit New York each year. The most important city in the United States is Washington, D. C. It is the capital, but it is much smaller than New York. Step1. The teacher reads the material.
Step2. The teacher analyzes the material without any pictures. When the students meet the new words, the teacher tells them the meaning directly. Next the teacher lets the students mark the phrase that appears in the paragraph.
Step3. After analyzing the material, the teacher writes some questions on the blackboard and then asks the students to find the answers from the material.
This method of reading teaching has some problems: the teacher should let the students preview the text with some questions rather than analyzing the text first; when the students meet some new words, the teacher explain the text at the first time, they may let the students guess the meaning from context; in the class the teacher is the subject, the students are object, the teacher have been speaking, the students do not have enough time to think or consider; as a result, the students understand some parts of the text or master some parts of the knowledge, the effect is very bad. From the above case we conclude that most of the traditional reading exercises are actually testing students’ reading comprehension. We have emphasized that the teaching of reading should focus on developing students reading skills. TBLT can achieve developing students reading skills.
3. The implication of TBLT in reading teaching 3.1 Teaching reading
3.1.1 Definitions of reading
Many attempts have been made to define or describe the aspects of the nature of reading. Teachers of English should have a reasonable idea of what is involved in the reading process, then they are more likely to be in a favorable position to help their students by deciding the types of reading matter the students should be exposed to and selecting appropriate teaching techniques so that the students could read efficiently the material presented to them.
It is generally agreed that reading is an active process of readers’ combining information from a giver text and their own background knowledge to make out the meaning of the written langrage. It is a silent, individual and extremely complex activity. By analyzing the elements involved in reading, which have been proposed by Peter Stevens (1983). 3.1.2 The nature of reading
(1) Reading is universal
Reading is carried out through the sense of sight. Effective reading requires the training of the muscles of the eyes to perform a number of tasks: to change focus as necessary; to seek a brief, large scale, general view of the text; to find a starting point; to change focus and scale so as to identify the language at the starting point; and then to follow along the text and proceeding at a speed which meets the understanding rate of the learners’ brains. (2) Reading is organized and systematic
Written language possesses beginnings and endings. It contains many internal breaks and divisions-spaces between letters or characters; bigger spaces between words; spaces between sentences; spaces between lines; paragraph divisions; chapter divisions; the conventions of punctuation, etc. It selects a set of visual symbols-letters and characters, together with diacritics, upper-case or lower-case distinctions, different styles of representation of the same shape such as roman, italic, printed or hand-written, etc-and it arranges these symbols in sequences or strings of varying length. The reader has to learn to be familiar with all these conventions of shape, sequence, arrangement and visual effects. (3) Reading is arbitrary and abstract, but meaningful
With some rare and partial exceptions (e.g. some characters in Chinese, etc.) the shapes of the symbols used in written language are arbitrary; they are unrelated to the real life forms of whatever it is they refer to. Letters, words, sentences and longer stretches of the text relate to meanings of several kinds and these relations are specific to each particular language. At the same time, written language always embodies visual clues to information of three kinds; of a grammatical kind, a lexical kind and a semantic kind, and in most writing systems the written language is a direct transformation of the spoken langrage. (4) Reading is related to a particular language and society
Writing is not only a mechanical process. It has great social and cultural importance. It is the embodiment of the history, achievement, customs, literature, values, beliefs, of a whole people, because it can build up and fix over a long period of refection of a society’s organized thought, However, the transmission of culture and ideas is only one of the functions which writing performs. 3.1.3 The elements concerning teaching reading (1) The reasons for reading
People usually read different things in different ways for different purposes. Generally Speaking, there are the following main reasons why people read.
The first reason is reading for information, which means that reading can help extend readers’ general knowledge of the world. For example, readers read newspapers, magazines, and reports to know what is happening or has happened.
The second reason is reading for study or learning. Readers may read because they want to know more about the topic covered by a book. This is reading considered as type of study. There are several languages where the word for “read” is the same as the word for “study”. For example, reading specialized articles, teaching materials and dictionaries are for this purpose.
The third reason is reading for survival. By reading, people obtain instruction on how to perform some tasks for their work or daily life. For example, a person may read the instruction on a medicine bottle to see if it is suitable for his sickness and how much to take.
The fourth reason is reading for enjoyment or pleasure. People read novels, stories and poems as a leisure activity. Many authors write simply to entertain the readers, and take readers into a world of adventure or romance, which they could not normally enter.
Readers also read because they want to improve their own use of language. People who have spoken English all their lives still try their best to learn more by reading. As they read, they allow their mind to accept and absorb unconsciously the use of words and the use of language. (2) Types of reading
What are the different ways of reading?
The readers read different texts in different ways, depending on their purposes for the reading. Some important categories are: (a) Skimming
The eyes run over the text to discover what is about, the main ideas, and the gist. For example, when reading a newspaper, the reader often glances over the headlines until he finds an article that catches his interest. When he does this, he is skimming for the general sense or the gist of the article. He wants to know what is in the article but only on a rather superficial level. Anther example is when the reader looks quickly at the content pate of a book, or at the chapter headings, subheadings, etc. This is sometimes called previewing. (b) Scanning
The reader is reading quickly for a specific piece of information. For example, people may want to see what’s on television this evening at 8 o’clock. They are unlikely to start reading form the beginning of the list of programs. Instead, their eyes move quickly over the page until we find 8 p.m., and then they start reading the details of the programs. (c) Extensive reading (or fluent reading)
This is the way of reading in order to gain an overall understanding of a longer piece of text perhaps a story, an article or a novel. While reading, we don’t worry about individual words and sentences and get caught up in the general flow of piece.
(d) Extensive reading (or fluent reading)
It is typically used with short sections or sentences when we need to understand or study information or language use in detail. For example, by skimming, we may find something in the newspaper really interesting that we want to read in detail. We want to read it again, more slowly, taking in the information and perhaps most typical language classroom focus is intensive reading, which involves a short reading passage followed by textbook activities to develop comprehension or a particular reading skill. (3) The skills involved in reading Recognizing the script of a language
Deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items Understanding explicitly stated information Understanding information when not explicitly stated Understanding conceptual meaning
Understanding the communicative value (function) of sentences and utterances Understanding relations within the sentence
Understanding relations between the parts of a text through grammatical cohesion devices Interpreting text by going outside it Recognizing indicators in discourse
Identifying the main idea form supporting details
Extracting salient points to summarize (the text, an idea, etc.) Selective extraction of relevant points from a text Basic reference skills Skimming
Scanning to locate specifically required information transcoding information to diagrammatic display (4) What makes an efficient reader?
Efficient reading depends first of all on having a purpose for reading. The purpose could be a very general one like reading a novel for pleasure; or it could be very specific one like looking up a dictionary for the meaning of a word. The purpose usually determines the appropriate type of reading, the appropriate reading strategies and the relevant reading skills to be used.
The teachers of English should help their students establish a purpose for reading by focusing their attention on cognitive skills. Actually, a change in the purpose usually involves a change in cognitive reading skill, and therefore the type of reading is done. Then, what are these cognitive skills? According to Greenwood (1992), the cognitive skills include most of the following abilities: To anticipate both the form and the contents;
To identify the main idea(s);
To recognize and recall specific details;
To recognize the relationship between the mail idea(s), and their expansion (examples, etc.); To follow a sequence, e.g. events, instructions, stages of an argument; To draw conclusions;
To recognize the writer’s purpose and attitude.
So the teacher can help the students by saying to them, “I would like you to read this passage in order to state the main idea, or in order to list the sequence of events, etc”. 3.1.4 Some considerations for teaching reading
There are a number of considerations for teachers to bear in mind when designing or using reading comprehension exercises:
If reading is to be efficient, the structure of longer units such as the paragraph or the whole text must be understood. It is no good studying a text as though it were a series of independent units. It is clear that one should start with global understanding and move towards detailed understanding rather than working the other way round. It is important to use authentic texts whenever possible. Reading comprehension should not be separated form the other skills. It is there for essential. To link the different skills through the reading activities. Reading is an active skill. It constantly involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking oneself questions. Another important point in devising reading comprehension exercises is that the activities should be flexible and varied. The aim of exercise must be clearly defined and a clear distinction must be made between teaching and testing. 3.1.5 Classroom procedures
It is useful to give the class some help on how to approach a new text. When teaching reading, the following procedure is very helpful with most texts.
(a) Consider the text as a whole, its title, accompanying pictures(s) or diagram(s), the paragraphs, the typeface used, and make guesses about what the text is about, who wrote it, who it is for, where it appeared, etc.
(b) Skim through the text at first time to see if the hypotheses were right. Then ask a number of questions about the contents of text.
(c) Read the text again, more slowly and carefully this time, trying to understand as much as possible and trying to answer the questions asked about the contents of the text. 3.1.6 Reading techniques
Most of the techniques suggested below by Grellet (1998) are already familiar to the students in their native langrage. But it is necessary to re-train them, as some students have difficulty in applying them to a
second language. 3.1.6.1 Sensitizing
It is essential for students to develop the strategies to cope with unfamiliar words and complex or apparently obscure sentences. It should ensure that they do not stumble on every difficulty or get discouraged for the outset. (1) Inference
(2) Understanding relations within the sentence (3) Linking sentences and ideas 3.1.6.2 Improving reading speed 3.1.6.3 From skimming to scanning (1) Predicting (2) Previewing (3) Anticipation
3.2 Reading teaching case:
We will analyze the implication of TBLT in reading teaching through a case, this case is about reading teaching in high school. Procedures: Step 1. Warming-up 1. Leading-in
Show some stamps, letters and postcards and have free talk to arouse students' motivation. 2. Dealing with some new words Q: Do you know the postage of a letter? Explain \\\"postage\\\ postage: payment for the carrying of letters
A: Eighty fen for any place in China except Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. Q: What do the postmen do with the letters?
A: They take the letters from the postbox and carry them away to the places on the envelopes and deliver them to the addressed people.
Explain \\\"deliver\\\ deliver: take letters or goods to the addressed people.
Q: Who put forward the proposal to use stamps? Use OHP to project the question onto the screen. Explain \\\"put forward\\\" and \\\"proposal\\\ put forward: put an idea before people for thinking over
proposal: sth. proposed, plan or idea, suggestion Again: Who put forward the proposal to use stamps? Step 2. Skimming 1. Instructions
T: Now I give you a passage to read, and for the first time you should only find the answer to the question. You have only two and a half minutes to read. So don't read word for word. Read quickly. Just try to find the answer.
2. Handing out the reading material and reading 3. Checking
Q: Who put forward the proposal to use stamps. A: Rowland Hill, a schoolmaster in England. Step 3. Scanning 1. Instructions
T: This time I give you three minutes to read the passage. When you are reading, find the answers to the two questions.
Use OHP to project the questions:
2. Why was the postage high in the early nineteenth century when people did not use stamps? 3. When were postage stamps first put to use? 4. Reading 5. Checking 1) Pair work 2) Class checking
Ans. to Que.1. Because the post offices had to send many people to collect the postage. Ans. to Que.2. On May 6, 1840. Step 4. Full reading 1. Instructions
T: Now I give you ten minutes to read the passage for the third time and you should read it carefully. Before reading, let's go over the questions on the work sheet. Give Work Sheet 1 to the Ss. Explain the new words in Que. 4. Prevent: stop, not let sb. do sth. Reuse: use again
T: Try to find the answers to the questions. But don't write the answers down, you can put a sign or underline the sentences concerning the questions.
2. Reading 3. Checking
1) Group work: Checking the answers in a group of four Ss. 2) Class work: Checking the answers in class. 4. Possible Answers:
1) Why were people unhappy to pay postage for letters in the early nineteenth century?
Because they had to pay postage when they received letters, especially when they paid for a letter which they did not wish to receive at all. The postage was high. 2) Why was it much easier for people to use stamps for postage?
Because people could go to the nearby post office to buy stamps and put them on envelopes before they sent the letters.
3) Why was the postage much lower using stamps?
Because in this way, the post office did not need to send postmen to collect postage. It only needed to send fewer postmen to deliver letters.
4) How could the post office prevent people from reusing the stamps?
The post office could simply put seals on the stamps so that people could not use the stamps again. 5) Check the understanding of the word \\\"seal\\\ seal: Did other countries take up the new postal system? Yes.
Check the understanding of \\\"postal\\\" and \\\"system\\\ postal: of the post
system: a set of working ways
6) Does every country in the world has its own stamps? Yes.
Step 5: Rounding-off
1. Answering Students' questions on the passage if any.
2. Making a guided-dialogue with the information given from the passage. Hand out Work Sheet 2. Do it in pairs.
3. Asking two or three pairs to read their dialogues. A possible completed dialogue: A: Oh, What a beautiful stamp! B: Yes, it\\'s from the U.S.A...
A: Do you know in the early nineteenth century people did not use stamps?
B: Then how did they pay the postage?
A: They had to pay the postage when they received letters. B: Was the postage very high then?
A: Yes. Because the post offices had to send many people to collect the postage. B: Who put forward the proposal to use stamps? A: Rowland Hill, a schoolmaster in England. B: Why do post offices put seals on the stamps? A: They can prevent people from using the stamps again. B: When did post offices begin to sell stamps? A: On May 6, 1840.
B: Thank you for telling me so many things about stamps. Step 6. Assignment
Ask the Ss to shorten the passage within four or five sentences after class, and to write it in their exercise books.
Reading Material:
How Did Postage Stamps Come Into Use?
When you send a letter or a postcard, you have to put stamps on the envelope or on the card. When did people first begin to use stamps? Who was the first to think of this idea?
In the early nineteenth century, people did not use stamps. They had to pay postage when they received letters. They were unhappy about this, especially when they paid for a letter which they did not wish to receive at all. The postage was high at that time, because the post offices had to send many people to collect the postage.
Rowland Hill, a schoolmaster in England, was the first to put forward a proposal to use stamps. He thought it would be much easier for people to use stamps to cover postage. They could go to the nearby post office to buy stamps and put them on envelopes before they sent the letters. The post office could simply put seals on the stamps so that people could not use the stamps again. In this way, the post office did not need to send postmen to collect postage. It only needed to send fewer postmen to deliver letters. That was a good idea and the government finally accepted it.
On May 6, 1840, post offices throughout England began to sell stamps. Soon this new postal system was taken up by other countries. Now each country has its own stamps. And there are many people who collect stamps all over the world. Work Sheet 1:
Find the answers to the following questions from the passage:
1. Why were people unhappy to pay postage for letters in the early nineteenth century? 2. Why was it much easier for people to use stamps for postage? 3. Why was the postage much lower using stamps?
4. How could the post office prevent people from reusing the stamps? 5. Did other countries take up the new postal system? 6. Does every country in the world have its own stamps now?
Work Sheet 2:
Complete the dialogue with the information you have got: A: Oh, What a beautiful stamp! B: Yes, it's from the U.S.A...
A: Do you know ____________________ people did not use stamps? B: Then how did they pay the postage?
A: _____________________________________________________. B: Was the postage very high then?
A: ____________________________________________________. B: Who put forward the proposal to use stamps?
A: _____________________________________________________. B: Why do post offices put seals on the stamps?
A: _____________________________________________________. B: When did post offices begin to sell stamps?
A: _____________________________________________________. B: Thank you for telling me so many things about stamps. Conclusion
In this thesis, we have found some problems of English reading and reading teaching among senior middle schools; we talked about the reasons and importance to improve students’ English reading competence in senior middle schools and introduce some implications for TBLT in this thesis during the reading teaching. During reading students will face various difficulties, they may lose heart or want to give up. As a teacher, we should give them some encouragement and assistance; the most of the importance is that we should adopt a good reading teaching approach to guide the students. Only in doing so, will we make some progress in the teaching of reading. Reference
陈琳，王蔷，程晓堂. 英语课程标准解读. 北京：北京师范大学. 2002 刘倩. 新课程初中英语教学法. 开明出版社. 2003 杨阳. 英语教学法技能与技巧. 高等教育出版社. 2005 张维友. 英语学习策略与技巧教程. 重庆大学出版社. 2004 http://xkwz.szsedu.net.cn/sites/gzyy/
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