With the international tendency and frequent international exchanges increasingly strengthened, English has become more significant and necessary. All of these signs indicate that the development of China will require a high level of using English especially on primary and middle school English education which is closely connected with English language competence of the whole nation. Thus there is a new teaching demand and teaching principle in English education. Then the English Curriculum Standards propose a new teaching method: Task-based Language Teaching. It is said that Task-based Language Teaching is one of the most effective ways to provide a helpful interactive framework to make students more active and interested in learning and to explore their potential language competence and arouse their enthusiasm to display the language creativity. This new trend is marked by the teaching goal recognized as developing students’ competence of using language. Now the Task-based Language Teaching implies student-centered teaching ideas. Students are acquired to learn language by finishing the communicative task.
Task-based Language Teaching first emerges in Hong Kong, China. It has gained an outstanding achievement in China from 2001. The authentic and meaningful tasks designed by teachers are the torches to light up students’ passion and enthusiasm. In addition, they can also provide students with interactive chances to get familiar with the language activity. Besides, The full time compulsory education and middle high school English curriculum standard (experiment draft) formulated by the Ministry of education in July, 2001 clearly announced that teachers have to avoid the teaching method which simply imparts language knowledge, and they had better choose the Task-based Language Teaching method. But at present in the practice of English teaching in middle schools, many teachers are lacking in the theoretical understanding of Task-based Language Teaching, and they cannot actually grasp its essence. They usually pay attention to the contents and results of students’ learning in English teaching practice while ignoring the learning process and training on students’ learning ability. In order to change this situation, really make a difference by using Task-based Language Teaching method in English classroom teaching, and effectively improve students’ competence of using English for communication, it is necessary to carry out a systematic introduction and analysis about the tasks and the Task- based Language Teaching method. (Li 10)
The study of Task-based Language Teaching dates from the1960s, and gains its further development in the 1990s. Then it has become the current hot topic in the study of foreign language classroom teaching. The scholar (Vygotsky 52) has done a lot of researches about this. He pointed out the initial conception of Task-based Language Teaching in Thought and Language, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1962. The experiment stresses that the interaction between teachers and students can greatly promote the language teaching. Meanwhile, in the book The Comparison between theoretical basis and the mode of Problem Language Teaching and Task-based Language Teaching, (Xia 38) firstly pointed out the necessity to put Task-based Language Teaching into practice to assist students to get out of the classroom, to extend the society into the classroom, and to help students develop the ability of surviving and working.
II. Various kinds of traditional teaching methods and Task-based
Language Teaching
2.1    The Grammar-translation Method
According to two famous scholars Prator and Celce-Murcia, the main features of the Grammar-translation Method are as followings. Firstly, classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language. Then most of the vocabulary are taught in the form of lists of separated words. And long explanations of the complexities of grammar are given. Grammar also provides the rules for combining words together and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words. Besides, little emphasis is put on the content of texts, which are treated as exercise in grammatical analysis. This is quite different from Task-based Language Teaching. In addition, the only practices are often exercise in translating isolated sentences from the target language into the mother tongue, which can rarely help students grasp language points. 浅谈任务型教学法对培养初中学生英语学习动机的影响(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_28589.html