论文总字数：35184字

摘 要

任务型教学法以任务组织教学，在任务的履行过程中，以参与、体验、互动、交流、合作的学习方式，充分发挥学习者自身的认知能力，调动他们已有的目的语资源，在实践中应用目的语。本文就任务教学法在词汇教学中的运用进行探索，阐述了任务教学法的定义，构成要素，以及意义。通过教师设计任务，创造和谐的语言环境和运用语言的机会，让学生在任务的完成和语言的使用过程中，积极主动地运用所学词汇。本文还提出教师应注重培养学生的学习策略，从而帮助学生运用词汇，提高学生的英语运用能力。

关键词：任务教学法；词汇教学；任务；语境

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Task-based Approach 2

3.1 Definition of task 2

3.2 Components of tasks 3

3.3 Task-based Language Teaching 4

4. Factors Affecting Vocabulary Learning 7

4.1 Lack of learning motivation 7

4.2 Lack of learning strategies 7

4.3 Anxiety 7

5. Benefits of Task-based Approach to Vocabulary Learning 8

5.1 Developing students" motivation 8

5.2 Improving students’ cooperation 9

5.3 Strengthening students’ responsibility 10

6. Implications for Vocabulary Teaching 10

6.1 Developing learners’ learning strategies 10

6.2 Designing three-stage activities in class 12

7. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

As we all know, vocabulary plays an important role in language learning. It is the basis for students to learn English well. Mastering a large number of vocabularies will help improve students’ English level. However, a large number of students find it is difficult to remember the vocabulary; as a result, they lose the interests in learning vocabulary, especially for the students in the suburban junior school. What may cause this situation? Some of the teachers only pay attention to their teaching work and ignore the main part of the students. Students only focus on teachers’ education work. In this way, students can not develop their thinking and innovative ability. Teachers only teach the vocabulary according to the English books and do not add the words related to the life in English class teaching. So the vocabulary of students can not be improved. In addition, the normal teaching method widely used in class is that the teachers read and explain the words and the students repeat for many times. This method is too single and passive which make students feel very boring. How to solve this problem and change the current situation?

New English Curriculum Standard (2001:15), issued by the Ministry of Education, states that “Task-based Language Teaching should be widely used.” It changed the traditional language teaching methods and the teachers should adopt the task-based language teaching methods to teach the vocabulary as possible as they can. It will develop the students thinking and learning abilities.

In this thesis, we mainly introduce the definition and components of task-based language teaching. Then we will analyze the advantages and implications of task-based language teaching to vocabulary learning. Finally, we will make the conclusion that the task-based language teaching is full of practical significance. The task-based language teaching can improve the students’ enthusiasm of studying the English vocabularies and develop the cooperation spirits of students to learn the English language.

2. Literature Review

Task-based language teaching was applied to vocational education in the early 1950s, and as a kind of teaching method of second language teaching , it is emerged in the 1980s,. Its development and constantly enrich beneficial from the theory of linguistics, foreign language teaching and second language acquisition theory support. First of all, the language teaching went through the grammar translation method, listening and writing method. In 1960s, the cognitive method opened up the new perspective of learners’ cognitive mode from the aspect of psychology. Cognitive mode emphasized that we should summarize and apply through communication. In addition, it also admits the students’ intelligence and takes full advantage of students’ initiation. In this way, students can do meaningful learning.

In 1970s, Hymes put forward the concept of communicative competence. Linguists began to notice that the social function of language. Communicative approach arises at the historic moment. It is based on functional projects and ideas and it emphasize that students should present the full of language materials and real communication scene to the learners and make language learners actively use the language. In this way, the knowledge and communicative provided a theoretical basis for the task-based language teaching from the aspects of cognitive psychological development and the social function.

In addition, the theory of second language acquisition task teaching method also has the important influence to the task-based language teaching. Krashen proposed the theory of language acquisition and the sore part is the input hypothesis. It emphasizes that only when the acquisition is access to the enough content, interesting and relevant materials, students will focus on the understanding of memory or meaning rather than understanding of the form. Visible, the task-based language teaching absorbed the communicative approach and second language acquisition. And on the basis of the relevant theories, it has enriched and expanded its own meaning.

3. Task-based Approach

3.1 Definition of Task

TBLT has been widely used in nowadays English language teaching. Recently, many English teachers and researchers in China spend a lot of time and energy to study the TBLT. The task-based approach aims to provide the chance for students to improve both spoken and written language through learning activities.

What is a task? Task is a word which entered into the applied linguistics literature in the early 1990s and it is not only used as a teaching method which draws attention by foreign language teachers, but also it has many relationships to syllabus design and material development. Although the task is a popular word in the literature of language teaching, many scholars have different understanding of task.

Long (1985:89) defines a task as a piece of work which requires people to undertaken, such as helping the old man cross the road, washing the clothes, and dressing a child. In other word, the task means one thing that people need to do everyday.

Richard, Platt and Weber (1986; 289) think that a task is an action or activity that is carried out as a result of understanding language.

Candling defines the task as a set of tasks related to the leaner’s’ cognitive and communities process. It will explore the new information in a collective form and it will accomplish the activity which is expected. This definition reflects the characters of task. In the foreign language classroom, the task can be summarized as follows: it is a goal of classroom communication or interaction activities that language learners use to promote language learning understand information process and solve the problem.

3.2 Components of Tasks

The first component is goal. Goal refers to the aims that students are expected to realize through finishing a task. Goals not only include the students’abilities to master what they have learned but also the ability to cultivate students’ skills and emotion.

The second component is input. And it refers to the useful information used during the process of finishing the task. In fact, there are a lot of forms for input, like website, newspapers and books. There are many materials for us to choose. But we should follow the principles for these materials, that is the materials should be interesting, authentic and close to the life for the learners.

The third component is activity. And it refers to the task. Activity means what the learners do with the input and that is the main point of the task. Activities can be divided into the form of groups. In this way, students can easily discover and solve the problems. What’s more, the linguistic communicative of students can be improved a lot.

The fourth component is role, including the students’ and teachers’ roles. In TBLT, teachers can play a lot of roles such as an instructor, a designer, an inspector, and a participant. Students can also play the role of an organizer and a participant. As an instructor, the teacher should guide the students to finish the task correctly and smoothly while the students are involved in the performance. As a designer, the teachers should design the meaningful task for students to carry out. As an inspector, when the error occurred, the teachers must help the students correct in time. As a participant, the teacher is also the members of the activities. As an organizer, the student should create the environment for them to learn the language. As a participant, learners should focus on their attention learning the language.

The fifth component is settings. Settings refer to the environment and background, including the language communication context and it also involves the organization form of class tasks. During the process of design task, we should try our best to make the settings close to the real scenes. In this way, the students’ awareness of relationship between language and context can be improved a lot.

3.3 Task-based Language Teaching

3.3.1 Features of TBLT

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is an advanced teaching method which is designed to improve the learners’ language learning by using the target language. Firstly, the teachers should design different tasks in which the students should play a major role as s participant. Secondly, students will learn to communicate with each other by finishing the tasks through interaction in target language. It provides more opportunities for students to participate in the activities. And the task-based language teaching is very different form the traditional teaching method. The most obvious change is that students become more active and energetic in the class. Thirdly, the learning activities with the task-based mainly express the importance, such as information transmission.

3.3.2 Framework of TBLT

Task-based learning framework has three steps: pre-task, task cycle and post-task.

For the pre-task stage, consciousness-raising activities are getting more and more important. They connect with the noticing because they attempt to raise awareness of language structure with providing learners with relevant language input and activity. We should ensure that the task is correct and has clear purpose. So the teachers should take advantage of the materials in English books.

Task-cycle is the process that students finish the task in group though self-directed learning or cooperation and it include three cycles. The first is that the students must carry out the task which puts forward by the teachers and finish the task by reading, searching the books, discussing and analyzing. The second is that planning to organize one group report the process of task to the whole class. The third cycle is reporting the condition of task by one student. Students can communicate with each other in this cycle and report the result to other students.

The cycle in the framework is post-task. The language focus provides a chance for form-focused work. In this cycle, the specific feathers of language occurred during the task are analyzed. And students should practice the language difficulties under the help of teachers. Teachers should also comment the complete missions of students and students can complement each other during this process.

3.3.3 The principles of task-based vocabulary teaching

The definition of task-based language teaching indicates that the teachers conduct the class teaching especially the vocabulary teaching should not focus on the forms and let students read and memory without thinking. The task-based language teaching needs teachers to design the vocabulary task and encourage students to finish the vocabulary learning through the communication. However, teachers must follow the principles of task-based language teaching.

Firstly, the teachers should follow the authenticity principle. The task of vocabulary teaching material should be derived from the real life and at the same time, the task of scene and specific activities should be close to the real life. Of course, the real is just a relative concept and the design of vocabulary teaching is not totally against the real language materials appeared in the classroom task. The one thing is for sure, the teachers should try to create real or close to the real environment. In this way, students will contact and process real vocabulary information as much as possible.

Secondly, teachers must follow the form function principle. The traditional vocabulary teaching is far from the context and function. The students may know different language form, but can not express the function and meaning correctly. Form function principle is on the basis of the principle of authenticity and it will clearly identify the relationship vocabulary form and function. Learners will fully feel the relationship between vocabulary form and function and enhance the appropriateness of language.

Thirdly, teachers should follow the dependency principle. This principle involves the relationship between the mission and task, and the implementation of the tasks in class steps and procedures, namely how to make a design task in the process of implementation of teaching and logically coherent and fluent. Task-based teaching is not a class with two activities and also not refers to the accumulation of a series of activities in the classroom. Task-based teaching is a teaching method through a set of or a series of tasks to complete or achieve the teaching goal. In the task-based vocabulary teaching, lesson of some tasks or a task of several subtasks should be connected to each other, at the same time to join each other in content. Nunan has put forward the task dependency principle, namely, the classroom task should be a "mission" or "task series", in the form of each task before the task as the base and starting point, the back of the task in accordance with belong to the task in front of, in this way, each class or series of tasks of each teaching unit makes a column teaching ladder, step by step enables learners to achieve the desired objectives. Task sequence can be varied, such as from receptive skills to output skill, or from the preliminary task to make the transition to goal-directed tasks, etc.

Last but not least, the teachers should follow the operability principles. Teachers should consider its operability in the classroom environment issues and should try to avoid those links, complicated procedures of classroom task. When necessary, teachers should provide students with tasks perform or the mode of operation.

4. Factors Affecting Vocabulary Learning

4.1 Lack of learning motivation

Learning motivation is the most dynamic factor in many individual factors of learning foreign language and it plays a decisive role in foreign language teaching and learning .Good learning motivation can produce the good effect of learning and learners learning motivation is the key factor in foreign language learning. However, for most of Chinese students, there is no doubt that it is important to learn the vocabulary, but the main purpose of learning is to meet the need of the exam and the entrance. As a result, they lack the lasting learning motivation, and more students are passive and helpless to learn English.

4.2 Lack of learning strategies

Many students can not find the right strategies for English vocabulary learning .Since the English is different from the Chinese; it has many differences in spelling and pronouncing. And it has many words to remember .Many students feel confused about the vocabularies and only read, write and repeat the words continuously. Since they can not summarize the effective ways to learning the vocabularies, they will lose the confidence of learning vocabularies and their English result is failing behind others. According to this phenomenon, we must find the right way to learn English vocabularies.

4.3 Anxiety

The impact of psychological anxiety factors on vocabulary learning should not be ignored. The biggest problem we faced in the field of vocabulary learning is that it is difficult to provide a classroom environment which has little anxiety. Thus, anxiety is one of the key factors that affect vocabulary learning. Anxiety is an important psychological phenomenon and it is considered to be the goals that the students could not achieve or the obstacles that the students could not overcome and this makes them lack of self-esteem and self-confidence or increase them the feeling of failure and guilt. As a result, they will form the emotional state of nervousness and fear. A lot of researches about the relationship between emotional factors and foreign language acquisition prove that anxiety is one of the most important emotional factors affecting foreign language teaching.

From the characters of vocabulary learning, vocabulary learning can not achieve overnight and it is a process of constant accumulation and repeated review. In this process, it needs the learner’s persistent efforts. And the effect of vocabulary learning is hard to emerge in the short period of time and this is one reason for the anxiety. In the English class, the students always complain that they forget the vocabularies that they remembered. From another perspective, it is also the special difficulties of English vocabulary learning. Vocabulary acquisition process is a strong continuity of engineering, and the students can better master English vocabularies depends largely on the accumulation of vocabulary and understand the way of memory. If they can not do it consistently and give up the learning even for a short time, it will also have a big impact on the effects of vocabulary acquisition, naturally, it will cause the “remember and forget" state. It is more serous that, in the process of vocabulary, learning in discontinuous that break the continuity of vocabulary learning and there are many news words to remember and this will cause the anxiety. And learning effect is not immediate, in a short period of time is difficult to show. After a period of efforts and the effect is not so significant, learners will inevitably produce anxiety.

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