A study of Task-based Language Teaching in Online Englis

h Language Teaching

Yang SuxiangDepartment of Foreign Languages, Henan Polytechnic University

1. Introduction Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has experienced more than two decades. Many researchers (Long, 1981, 1985, 1989; Doughty & Pica, 1986; Probhu, 1987; Candlin & Murphy, 1987; Brown & Palmer, 1988; Breen, 1987, 1989; Nunan, 1989,1991, 1993; Crookes & Gass, 1993a, b; Willis, 1996; Skehan, 1996a,1998; Robinson, 2001; Littlewood, 2002; Mori, J. 2002; Yuan & Ellis, 2003, etc.) published research papers, books and textbooks about the subject.

In China, task-based language teaching was introduced in the late 1990s. Many people like Niu ， 1990; Wu, 1997, Xia & Kong, 1998;Sun, 1998, Zhang ,1998;Gong, 1998; Yu, 2000; Ni, 2001; Chai, 2001; Xie, 2001; Zheng , 2001;Ruan , 2001; Huang, 2001;Lu, 2002 began to research and use it.

With the rapid development of the information technology, the application of Internet in education becomes more and more popular. It provides rich resources for English teaching, embodying the teaching ideas of learning by doing, inquiring learning and cooperative learning, and making Internet-based English teaching become true. But whether the Internet-based English Teaching can improve the students’ English learning urgent the author to carry out this study.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of combining task-based language teaching with online English language teaching. The questions involved in this study are: 1) This method could activate the students’ interests in English learning. 2) This method could stimulate the students’ potential ability in English learning.3) This method could improve the students’ basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing in English leaning.

2. Rationales2.1 Theory basis1)Cooperative learning 2) John Dewey’s “learning-by-doing”3) inquiry-based learning2.2 Jane Willis’ TBL framework

2.3 Wiles and Bondi’ Internet Lesson Planning Template:1) Introduction 2) Questioning and Planning 3) Process/Tasks4) Outcome and Evaluation

3. Research design3.1 The subjects The subjects involved in this study are non-major English graduate students in two classes in Henan Polytechnic University. Class 1 is the experimental class and Class 2 is the controlled class. The textbooks they used are New Century Non-English Major Graduate English Book A. The experimental period is from September, 2005 – January, 2006. The measure tools are their two final exams in two terms, and Qualitative and quantitative approaches are used in generating the results.

As for the data treatment, the author use qualitative treatment and quantitative treatment. For qualitative treatment, the teacher’ journal and the students’ comments are used to show if online English Teaching can activate the students’ interest in English learning. For quantitative treatment, the author uses statistical analysis. Statistical methods can make us find the things and relationships that we cannot see with our naked eyes, and it has strong persuasion.

The author also uses pretest and posttest to compare the experiment results. The pretest for written examination is the entrance class-divided exam of the students. The pretest is used to show the reliabilities of the study. The posttest for written examination is the term exam of 2005-2006 the first term, which is used to show the differences of the two classes. Oral tests are the Public English Test System Level 3.

4.2 Comparison of the Ss’ improvement in English learning

4.2. Comparison of overall achievement of EC and CC

1.in the pretest

ClassClass NN MeanMean SDSD t t testtest

Experimental ClassExperimental Class 6060 68.3368.33 9.939.930.2420.242

Controlled ClassControlled Class 5252 70.3770.37 8.118.11

p > 0.05 this indicates that there is no significant difference in their pretest.

From the above table 1, we can see there was no significant difference between EC and CC before the experiment, so it guarantees the reliability of the study.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and significance of differences of EC and CC in pretest

2. in the posttestTable2 Descriptive statistics and significance of differences of EC and CC in posttest

Class N Mean SD t test

Experimental Class 60 72.15 7.280.027*

Controlled Class 52 69.17 6.62

* Indicates p < 0.05

4.3 Comparison of the basic knowledge and skills4.3.1. Comparison of “listening” 1. in the pretest

Means, standard deviations, and numbers for each class on the pretest are shown in Table 3. The results of the t test indicates that there is no significant difference (p = 0.432 > 0.05) between EC and CC before the experiment.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics of “listening”

Class N Mean SD t testExperimental

Class 60 16.7 2.460.432

Controlled Class 52 16.35 2.26

p > 0.05 this indicates that there is no significant difference in their pretest.

2. in the posttest

Table 4 Descriptive statistics of listening comprehension

Class N Mean SD t test

Experimental Class 60 17.88 2.11

0.002**

Controlled Class 52 16.56 2.32

** Indicates p <0.01

4.3.2. Comparison of “speaking” 1. in the pretestTable5 Descriptive statistics of oral item in the posttest

Class N Mean SD t testExperimental

Class 60 7.1 1.090.69

Controlled Class 52 7.01 1.03

From the above table 5, we can see there was no significant difference between EC and CC in “speaking” before the experiment.

2. in the posttest

Table 6 Descriptive statistics of oral item in the posttest

Class N Mean SD P

Experimental Class 60 7.1 1.09

0.009**Controlled Class 52 6.58 1.18

NB: **p<0.01

4.3.3. Comparison of “reading” 1. in the pretest

Table 7 Descriptive statistics of reading comprehensions

Class N Mean SD t test

Experimental Class

60 19.88 3.480.19

Controlled Class 52 19.04 3.23

From the above table 7, we can see there was no significant difference between EC and CC before the experiment.

2. in the posttestTable 8 Descriptive statistics of reading comprehensions

ClassN

Mean SD t test

Experimental Class 60 19.93 2.67

0.0008***

Controlled Class 52 18.39 1.97

*** Indicates p <0.001

4.3.4. Comparison of “writing” 1. in the pretest

Table 9 Descriptive statistics of writing

Class N Mean SD t test

Experimental Class 60 11.78 1.21

0.33

Controlled Class 52 12.1 1.94

From the above table 9, we can see there was no significant difference between EC and CC before the experiment.

2. in the posttestTable 10 Descriptive statistics of writing

Class N Mean SD t test

Experimental Class 60 12.18 1.19

0.0005***

Controlled Class 52 11.33 1.35

*** Indicates p <0.001

The results of the study show that the students’ interests in English have greatly improved. Before the lesson, they collect the material on the Internet. In class they have heat discussions and active presentations. After class they write a lot of compositions. The students’ learning by doing, inquiring learning and cooperative learning has been fully developed.

In a word, Internet-based Language Teaching can activate the students’ interest in English language learning, can stimulate the students’ potential ability in English learning, and especially can improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities. Although some limitations still exist in the current study, it has yielded some useful findings that are believed to have implications for Internet-based English teaching.

Thank you !