Open AccessCollege Students’ Perceptions on the Issues of Task-based Language Teaching in Mainland
Author(s) -
Yaru Meng,
Bing Cheng
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of language teaching and research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-0684
pISSN - 1798-4769
DOI - 10.4304/jltr.1.4.434-442
Subject(s) - task (project management) , mainland , perception , mainland china , psychology , mathematics education , computer science , linguistics , engineering , geography , archaeology , philosophy , systems engineering , neuroscience , china
The survey was conducted on 96 engineering sophomores in a northwest university in Mainland China with the purpose to investigate their favorite communicative tasks, their perceptions on their task performance as well as their opinions on the teacher role in the classroom. Besides, the study also tries to explore the correlations between different variables like scores of national College English Test Band 4 scores , participation frequency, and self-evaluation of personal performance. The results reveal a panorama of a Chinese task-based English class. First and foremost, the students’ preferred tasks are mostly two-way divergent group tasks. In addition, most students reported that participating in the tasks was very “exciting” and “beneficial”, while over a quarter students reported that they were somewhat disappointed at their own task performances. Thirdly, they perceived the college English teacher as a facilitator and tutor in learning strategies. Finally, the results show that the more frequent the students participate in different tasks, the better they evaluate their own performance. Besides, the higher the band 4 scores are, the more frequent they are willing to participate. This study sheds lights on the important issues for task-based instruction and helps English teachers and curriculum designers to address the students’ needs from the learner’s perspectives. Implications for the implementation of task-based language teaching are discussed.