Constructive Task—based Teaching Approach on English Reading

【Abstract】Constructive task-based teaching method combines constructive theory with the task-based teaching method. Reading is one important skill in English learning， so this paper focuses on put a new method into English reading teaching to help the students learn English more efficiently.

【Key words】constructive task-based teaching method； reading； college English

Introduction

Reading is one of the four skills in language learning， which has an important position in the process of language learning.“Krashen had argued strongly that SLA is dependent on the availability of comprehensible input before the learners internal processing mechanism can work”.（ Ellis 1999：157） and task-based teaching is the teaching based on constructivism. In the process of doing tasks learners are aware of why they are learning certain things and what they are going to achieve.（Xu Jinfen 2005：75） there are different types of tasks. Nunan defines the communicative task：a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending， manipulating， producing or interacting in the language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than on form. （1989：10）

The practice of constructive task-based teaching in reading class

First of all， the teacher should prepare the lesson carefully. The task design should be put on the important position， which will decide if the class can be successful. The teacher can prepare background， especially information about history， geometry and customs of western countries varied from China. In this part， the teachers should also design some various tasks， like graphic chants， comparison and contrast and so on. Then some news words can be chosen. Besides， the title should pay special attention. The teacher must guide students to discuss and predict the contents of the passage according to title， illustrations. Also the teacher can guide students to be detectives to discover hidden facts and the end based on known facts. It is better for teacher to think about some questions which can cover the main idea.about questions， the teachers can deal with different tasks by organizing groups， self-study， presentation， role play to show how students understand the questions.

Second， teacher should make sure different tasks during different process. During warm-up， teacher can give this period of time to students to speak as they want. Teacher can ask students to make a speech or role play or read the hot issue in the newspaper. Also they can give tasks like showing the video to lead in the topic or do brainstorming of mind map to lead students to think about the topic. For example， when talking about the topic of my favorite animal， a piece of video is shown to arouse students interest and questions are shown to think. Then the teacher can do the brainstorming about the knowledge of the animal from appearance， habitat， eating habit， life span and the relationship between human being and animals. In this way students have a clear idea about the topic and also they can connect their own experience and the reading material as well. Then in the reading part， let students skim and scan the specified contents by eyes， not by reading sentence by sentence. Ask students questions about main idea by group work， games or pair work. Talk about what， where， why， who， how and other questions and ask students to talk about stating， process and ending of the passage. This part is important because it will check if students understand the passage， so the ability to grasp the main idea is the key part to train. Therefore， different tasks should be designed， like underline the key sentences in each paragraph， choose key words in the topic and summarize the key points. The Teacher can encourage students to express their understanding of the passage in their own words. During this process， the teacher focuses on training students reading ability. After reading， students should have the ability to summarize the topic and also they can think about the lesson from the reading， which can push input into output.

Conclusion about teaching practice

Constructive task-based teaching focuses on learner-centered. The students are the main part of study， and the center of the whole teaching process. The students are the owner of class and during the class， teacher create different kinds of opportunities to let students express their opinions. The teacher should also pay attention to evaluation of what students have shown.

References：

[1]Rod Ellis.Understanding Second Language Acquisition.Shanghai：shanghai foreign language education press，1999.

[2]Li Menghua，Wang Deming.College English.Shanghai：shanghai foreign language education press，2003.

[3]Nunan，D.Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom.Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，1989.

[4]Xu Jinfen.The Theory and Practice of Modern Foreign Language Teaching.Wuhan：Huazhong University of Science and Technology，2005.

作者簡介：劉瑋華（1986.2.22-），女，漢族，湖北十堰人，碩士，研究方向：外國語言學及應用語言學。