The National English Curriculum Standard clearly states that "this course advocates task-based teaching mode" and requires that "teachers should avoid the teaching method of simply imparting language knowledge and try to adopt task-based teaching method" (Ministry of Education, 200 1), because task-based teaching is considered as "the most effective means available at present (P
Task-based teaching method is the latest development of western English education since 1980s, and it is also the latest development of communicative teaching method.
Tasks have different definitions. Generally speaking, task is a teaching activity, "meaning-centered activity, which enables learners to participate in the understanding, processing, output and/or interaction of the target language." (D. Noonan, 1989)
Through reading and analyzing the works of D. Noonan, J. Joerden and P. Xie Kan, combined with the analysis of the textbook New Standard English for Primary School and New Target English for Junior High School, we know that task-based teaching has the following basic characteristics:
1. Task-based teaching is a new form and development of communicative approach, not a substitute for communicative approach. (Joerden)
2. Task-based teaching emphasizes the teaching process, trying to make students participate in the learning process by completing tasks in real life, so that students can form the ability to use English. Therefore, task-based teaching overcomes the deficiency of function-based communicative teaching method that does not pay attention to the process. (Di Noonan Skehan)
3. Task-based teaching still emphasizes the cultivation of students' English communicative competence, but it emphasizes the cultivation of students' comprehensive language use ability from a wider level. (Skehan)
4. Task-based teaching emphasizes the task in real life as the teaching center activity, which corrects the problem of insufficient authenticity of functional teaching activities. (Di Noonan)
5. Task-based teaching requires that teaching activities should help students learn language knowledge and develop language skills, so as to improve their practical language application ability. In other words, task-based teaching does not oppose language knowledge teaching, but advocates language knowledge teaching with the purpose of language application ability. Therefore, tasks include both real life tasks and learning tasks. (D. Noonan, J. Richards, S. Gass)
New Standard English is a brand-new junior high school English textbook compiled according to the national English curriculum standards. Therefore, according to the idea of task-based teaching, the corresponding tasks are designed in the teaching materials for teachers to use in teaching. We put forward the following suggestions on the procedure of task-based classroom teaching. Both Noonan (1989) and Willis (1996) have discussed the task-based teaching procedure, which is generally a three-stage procedure of task presentation, teaching and task completion. This is the embodiment of the basic idea of task-driven in task-based teaching, and also has a clear teaching purpose. Therefore, the classroom teaching procedure of task-based teaching is:
1, task demonstration
This is a unique teaching link of task-based classroom teaching. Task-based classroom teaching presents tasks from the beginning, so that students can make clear the tasks to be completed from the beginning of classroom teaching, and then learn language knowledge and skills training driven by tasks. This learning process is a task-driven process, which is conducive to strengthening learning interest and motivation and reflecting the authenticity of the task. You can also not present tasks at the beginning of classroom teaching, but only present tasks and complete tasks after knowledge learning and skill training, but this is not a task-driven teaching process, and students' learning motivation is not as strong as the task-driven process.
2, task preparation: knowledge and skills teaching
The task preparation process is actually our classroom teaching process, and classroom teaching is the process of preparing knowledge and ability for completing tasks.
After we present the application task to students at the beginning of classroom teaching, students can feel that they don't have enough knowledge, ability, skills, information and cultural understanding, and there are obvious knowledge gaps, ability gaps, skill gaps, information gaps and cultural gaps between the requirements of the task and their current knowledge and ability. Therefore, driven by the task, students acquire the knowledge, ability, skills, information and cultural understanding necessary to complete the task by learning the teaching content, and then complete the task.
This process of learning teaching content is the process of knowledge teaching and skill training in peacetime.
A. Knowledge learning
This is our usual language knowledge (pronunciation, vocabulary, sentences, grammar, etc.). ) and cultural knowledge teaching, but task-based teaching emphasizes that knowledge teaching is related to tasks, that is, knowledge itself should be necessary to complete tasks, and students lack it before (that is, it belongs to the knowledge gap), so we should constantly take care of the tasks themselves in the process of knowledge teaching.
B. Skills training
This includes the teaching of language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and learning skills (learning strategies). Of course, task-based teaching emphasizes that skill teaching is related to tasks, that is, skills themselves should be necessary to complete tasks, which students lacked before (that is, skill gap), and at the same time, we should constantly take care of the tasks themselves in the process of skills.
There is no essential difference between this and the conventional classroom teaching procedures, but the teaching process must be carried out around the completion of tasks, that is, the knowledge and skills learned are necessary to complete the tasks, and at the same time, the knowledge and skills learned should be constantly reflected in the tasks to be completed in the teaching process, that is, direct links should be established between newly learned knowledge, skills and application tasks, so that students can not only master knowledge and skills, but also form the ability to use knowledge and skills.
3, the task is completed
The completion of the task is the last link of the task-based teaching plan. By completing the task, students will transform the knowledge and skills learned in the previous link into the ability to use English in real life.
This link can be completed in the teaching process, under the guidance of the teacher, in the classroom, for example, after the completion of the teaching content, or in the final stage of classroom teaching, or after class. Generally, short-term tasks can be completed directly in the teaching of this unit, and long-term tasks can be completed within the specified time (preferably no more than one semester).
For those tasks with high ability requirements, students can be required to complete collectively, and for some tasks with general ability requirements, students can be required to complete alone.
Two. Specific teaching methods and skills
As mentioned above, task-based teaching includes the task of learning habits, that is, the task of training skills and learning knowledge. To this end, we provide you with the following teaching methods and skills for reference in terms of knowledge teaching and skill teaching.
4. Grammar teaching methods
It is impossible for our primary and middle school students in China to learn English well without learning grammar. Grammar teaching can help students have a clear and systematic understanding of English language rules and help them establish language norms. However, we should pay special attention to grammar teaching. We teach students English grammar not to cultivate their ability to analyze English language with grammar, nor to cultivate them into English grammarians. Grammar teaching serves to cultivate students' ability to use English, and grammar teaching is subordinate to the cultivation of students' ability to use English. At present, some English teachers and English education researchers overemphasize grammar analysis and always want to cultivate students' ability to analyze grammar, which is actually a grammar teaching method of putting the cart before the horse. The following grammar teaching methods can be used as reference for teachers in grammar teaching.
1, inductive grammar teaching
Induction is a learning method from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge. Induction requires us to give students some language materials containing grammar teaching content first, so that students can get in touch with these grammatical phenomena in learning language materials, and then guide students to summarize grammar rules from these language materials.
Induction can help students get language materials first, get rational knowledge from perceptual knowledge, and help students understand and master grammar rules. However, it takes a certain amount of teaching time and teachers to formulate more teaching rules for language materials, and it is necessary to teach language materials from the perspective of context and pragmatics, rather than directly from grammatical concepts and rules.
2. Deductive grammar teaching
Deduction is to teach students the concept directly from the formed concept, and then explain the concept with example sentences and language materials.
Deduction allows students to get in touch with grammar rules first, which can avoid rule mistakes. However, deductive method is too rational, which requires students to have strong abstract thinking ability, strong learning interest and certain learning perseverance. ?
Compared with deduction, induction is more conducive to reducing students' learning burden, learning difficulties and anxiety, while deduction is more conducive to shortening students' learning time and reducing students' learning mistakes. Induction is more conducive to students' learning and deduction is more conducive to teachers' teaching.
The author thinks that induction is more suitable for initial teaching and new knowledge teaching, while deduction is more suitable for expanding teaching and strengthening old knowledge. However, teachers should choose teaching methods according to the dynamic and real educational factors and teaching factors of their classes.
3. Comparative grammar teaching
The so-called comparison here includes two aspects: one is the comparison of English language phenomena with similar English grammar but different English grammar, such as the comparison between the simple present tense and the present continuous tense, the comparison between the simple past tense and the present perfect tense, and the comparison between adjective possessive pronouns and noun possessive pronouns. The second is the comparison of related grammatical phenomena and structural rules between English and Chinese.
Comparative grammar teaching can compare two grammatical phenomena after learning one comparable grammatical phenomenon and then learning another grammatical phenomenon. For example, after learning adjective possessive pronouns, when learning noun possessive pronouns, we can compare the learned adjective possessive pronouns with noun possessive pronouns to help students learn to master noun possessive pronouns.
Grammar summary and review can also be taught by comparative grammar. For example, after learning the basic tenses of five verbs, compare the differences in usage, semantics and pragmatics of the five tenses to help students consolidate their mastery. When reviewing, the grammar teaching of comparative method should be the comparison of language in a sufficiently real language environment, rather than the comparison of simple grammatical concepts and terms.
4. Centralized grammar teaching
Like the centralized vocabulary teaching method, centralized grammar teaching is to concentrate the English grammar knowledge that students need to learn in a semester or the whole primary and secondary school stage in one week or two or three weeks, and try to let students master the basic knowledge of English grammar quickly in a short time by using deductive method.
This grammar teaching method requires students to have a strong interest in grammar learning, a strong perseverance in grammar learning and a strong ability to concentrate. This grammar teaching method should be helpful to students in the final review and graduation review, but it may enhance students' anxiety in learning English at the early stage of learning, which may seriously lead to psychological obstacles in students' English learning.
This method has long separated grammar learning from text learning. If the grammar knowledge of a semester is concentrated at the beginning of the semester, the grammar knowledge to be learned in the last unit of this semester may be separated from the text learning of a semester, which will affect students' accurate use of grammar knowledge. This method has long separated grammar knowledge from the application of grammar knowledge, which is not conducive to students' learning to master the real context of using grammar knowledge and its real pragmatic function.
Centralized grammar teaching can effectively help students learn grammar knowledge systematically, and can also help students learn grammar knowledge that is easy to be confused. If it can be used reasonably, it can help us improve the quality and efficiency of teaching. However, if used improperly, it will increase the difficulty of teaching, affect the quality and efficiency of teaching, and affect students' ability to use English. At the same time, when using the concentration method, how to concentrate, which grammar knowledge to concentrate, and how to combine the centralized teaching of grammar knowledge with the cultivation of grammar knowledge application ability should be considered. Blind concentration may not be conducive to the improvement of the teaching quality and teaching efficiency of the class taught by the teacher.
5. Grammar teaching with pictures.
Many teachers use pictures to learn about explaining english grammar, because the pictures are intuitive, which can make students easily grasp the teaching content and often achieve better teaching results.
Pictures can only be used in the teaching of some English grammar knowledge, such as the teaching of locative prepositions and adverbs and the teaching of tenses.
6. Grammar teaching in tabular form.
Tables can clearly compare and classify grammar knowledge, so they often appear in grammar knowledge teaching, and even some grammar books are written in the form of tables.
Because the table emphasizes the consistency of content, it can only list the basic content of English grammar knowledge, and it is often difficult to list the particularly inconsistent content and the application of grammar knowledge.
7. Computer animation grammar teaching.
Computer animation is not widely used in English grammar teaching, and it is often used in some computer-aided teaching software for grammar teaching. Computer animation has a strong sense of movement, and animation itself is very popular with students. At the same time, animation can clearly express actions with explanations, so this form is very vital.
With the extensive development of computer-assisted English teaching, grammar teaching in the form of computer animation will be widely used.
Because most of the current computer teaching software is not connected to the internet, it is difficult to compare the grammar teaching of computer animation among students, which affects the teaching effect of computer animation to some extent. 8. Grammar teaching methods in communicative teaching.
No matter what teaching principles are adopted, grammar knowledge should be taught to students, but the teaching methods are different. Nowadays, all the new textbooks emphasize the cultivation of students' English communicative competence, and adopt hidden-line teaching method in grammar, which is more difficult for China students who can enter the English environment only after a few English classes a week. In fact, the necessary explanation of grammar knowledge is inevitable, and the key is how to implement the principle of ability education in grammar teaching. In grammar teaching, we can adopt the following methods:
A, in the explanation of grammar knowledge, should we talk about the pragmatic purpose and contextual requirements of grammar knowledge?
In fact, English grammar is not rigid knowledge, but has its own pragmatic purpose and contextual requirements. When we explain grammar, as long as we grasp the pragmatic purpose and contextual requirements, students will get rid of dead knowledge and be inspired by their abilities. For example, when we use the verb past continuous tense, we should teach students that this tense is used to describe and explain the actions that happened at some time in the past, such as telling the policeman who was investigating the robbery last night what you were doing at six o'clock last night, apologizing to your friend because you were not at home when he came to your house the day before yesterday, playing football on the court and so on. And tell students that in this context, we must use the past continuous tense to achieve this pragmatic purpose. This method not only enables students to master the construction method of the past continuous tense, but more importantly, teaches students what pragmatic purpose and context to use the past continuous tense, which is the real purpose of learning grammar.
B, when giving examples, give examples that are true in meaning, context and pragmatics?
When explaining grammar knowledge, you must give some examples to illustrate this grammar knowledge. At this time, our examples must have a clear and reasonable pragmatic purpose, the context and semantics of examples should be as complete and reasonable as possible, the English language of examples should be as standardized and authentic as possible, some untrue examples should be avoided as far as possible, and the original English text should be used as far as possible. At the same time, we should pay attention to English-Chinese dictionaries, idiom dictionaries, grammar books, original English-American dictionaries, reference books and grammar books written by China people, which can only be used for reference. Teachers can refer to several original English dictionaries, reference books and grammar books imported from Britain and the United States in recent years, especially Longman Dictionary and The Complete Book of English Grammar compiled by R. Quirk in 1995 and some original English textbooks.
C. In grammar practice, we should reduce mechanical training and strengthen pragmatic training. English in practice should be as standard and true as possible. After teaching grammar knowledge, of course, in order to help students consolidate what they have learned, they should be given the necessary training opportunities. At this time, we should resolutely abandon the traditional mechanical training methods and provide students with clear pragmatic purposes and contextual semantic requirements. Students should not only master the correct grammatical expression methods, but also master the grammatical knowledge they have learned when expressing what semantics in what context and for what pragmatic purpose.
It is very important for students to master and understand grammar knowledge just after they have mastered it. Therefore, we must guide students to practice in standard and authentic English and really master how to use these grammar knowledge. If English practice is not standardized and idiomatic, it is likely that students will form irregular or even wrong grammatical usage. 9. Several main problems that should be avoided in grammar teaching
A, too many concepts, re-analysis of light pragmatics?
Some teachers are used to teaching grammar knowledge from the concept of grammar, as if they can't teach grammar without concept, so that a large number of grammar concepts are introduced into the classroom in grammar teaching, making students feel that grammar is all concepts and grammar learning is concept learning. As a result, students often master many grammatical concepts, but still have no grammatical knowledge, or when they see a sentence, they will sit in the right position with grammatical concepts.
Some teachers put too much emphasis on grammatical analysis in grammar teaching, requiring students to learn to conduct a comprehensive grammatical analysis of English, and each sentence should be divided into sentence components. Moreover, this practice is often accompanied by too many grammatical concepts, which require students to use various grammatical concepts to analyze the English language.
These teachers ignore pragmatic teaching in grammar teaching, do not explain grammar knowledge from the use of language, and do not ask questions and train students from their application ability. As a result, students often learn a lot of concepts and grammar analysis, but they just don't learn how to use grammar knowledge. This kind of grammar teaching, the author thinks, is a failure and does not meet the purpose of grammar teaching.
Second, this example lacks the necessary context.
The sentences used by some teachers in grammar teaching often lack the necessary context, so that these sentences can't really express some meaning. In order to explain grammar knowledge, teachers often give it a certain meaning. It leads students to think that this example sentence has certain significance, but when reading in the real context, it is impossible to establish an organic connection between the semantics obtained in grammar learning and the real context. Or use this sentence to express the semantics obtained in grammar learning in real expression, but it leads to the expression receiver unable to understand or accurately understand its real semantics, because this sentence cannot express the semantics that students want to express in real context at this time.
Some teachers use some examples that can fully explain a grammatical concept or can be used for a grammatical analysis in grammar teaching, but these examples are often written specifically for this kind of grammar teaching, and these examples cannot be used to express real pragmatic functions in real contexts.
Grammar teaching is knowledge-based teaching. Once knowledge and ability are separated, it will affect the quality and efficiency of teaching.
C, segmentation is too thin, ignoring the semantic whole
In grammar teaching, some teachers often divide the whole semantics according to grammar in order to teach grammar knowledge, instead of teaching the whole semantics. As a result, students can't see the forest for the trees, understand the grammatical structure, but don't understand the semantics. Twelve. Teaching method of written expression
1, extending writing teaching
The teaching of extended writing is to start with the words and sentences that students have mastered, teach students to expand sentences step by step, and gradually cultivate students' ability to form chapters. Extension method is a common method in writing teaching, and it is also a universal and effective method. Expansion can be divided into two types: controlled expansion and uncontrolled expansion. Controlled expansion requires students to expand according to given words, sentences, contents or prescribed forms and purposes to form a controlled chapter. Uncontrolled expansion is to let students expand according to their English ability and writing will.
The teaching of extended writing can start from the lower grades.
2. Classified writing teaching.
The teaching of classified writing is usually divided into three categories: reading pictures, writing according to given materials, letter writing and diary writing, and then writing is taught according to different categories.
Classified writing teaching usually requires different types of text forms.
Classified writing teaching and extended writing teaching can be used interchangeably.
Classified writing training is also an important achievement of genre teaching method.
3. Teaching from oral composition to written composition.
This teaching method usually starts with students' collective oral composition, and then requires them to write according to the oral composition, which is usually the perfection and supplement of oral composition.
This method is conducive to giving full play to the demonstration and driving role of students with good foundation to the whole class, and is widely used in Chinese composition teaching in lower grades of primary schools.
Thirteen. Cultural teaching methods
Cross-cultural education is one of the important contents of English curriculum, and the new standard English fully embodies the concept of cross-cultural education. For the teaching of cultural content, we can adopt the following methods:
1. Explicit culture teaching
For explicit cultural teaching content, we should teach it very explicitly, let students observe and analyze it, and encourage students to discuss it after they have certain English language ability.
In the teaching of dominant culture, we need to pay attention to students' cultural and emotional experiences in observation and analysis, encourage students to understand the completely different places between foreign cultures and China cultures, tolerate those unreasonable phenomena in foreign cultures and avoid the concept of cultural discrimination.
At the same time, the most important thing is not only to encourage students to form an open cultural mentality, but also to form two opposite but unreasonable cultural mentalities, that is, to belittle themselves or to be arrogant.
2. Implicit culture teaching
Teaching English with texts about the culture of English-speaking countries, only language teaching, not direct explicit culture teaching, is implicit culture teaching, because students have actually understood the culture by understanding the texts.
In the teaching of implicit culture, teachers should closely observe students' cultural feelings. If there is cross-cultural misunderstanding, discrimination and other cultural mentality, explicit culture teaching should be carried out in time.
3. Theme culture teaching
Theme project is an effective cultural teaching integration mechanism, which can effectively integrate English teaching, history, geography, science and even Chinese, and carry out theme teaching activities in English as the working language.
UNESCO has always advocated the organization of such international theme practice activities, and qualified schools can also organize them. For the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we can organize the Olympic Games: from Athens to Beijing, which involves many disciplines. More importantly, such activities can integrate students' abilities and cultivate their comprehensive practical ability.
The above teaching methods and skills are basically from teaching practice, some from our teaching practice, and some may come from your teaching practice. We choose it here for your reference in the new standard English teaching in middle schools. If you have better teaching practice methods and skills, please provide them to us and share them with more middle school teachers through us.