1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Language is mainly used to express meanings and transfer information，in whichspeaking is of vital importance. Fulcher (2003) once stated that "Speaking is theverbal use of language to communicate with others，，(p.23). In China, English learninghas been very popular among people who start learning English at primary school orbefore it. However，although Chinese students start learning English at an early ageand English is seen as a main course at school, the result is not satisfactory. Chinesestudents often can do well in examinations, but they have difficulty in opening theirmouths to speak English. Many students reflect that they have no confidence inspeaking md are unable to express themselves exactly in English. It is especiallyobvious among those students whose English level is low，such as junior collegestudents. Junior college students seem to lack interest in oral English course and theyare unwilling to open their mouths to speak English. Besides their low English level,the traditional teacher-centered teaching method is another important reason for thissituation. In traditional oral English class, teachers often lead students to readdialogues in textbooks or repeat sentence patterns, which is of little practical use andhelp to improve students' oral English. Under this method, students become passiverepeaters and they are not able to put what they have learned at class into practice.That is to say, they still cannot express themselves and communicate with others inEnglish as expected. Gradually, they will lose confidence in speaking and interest inoral English class. Therefore，it is very necessary for teachers to find an effective wayto enhance students，interests in speaking, change their attitudes towards oral Englishclass，and eventually improve their oral English.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
The thesis is an action research on the application of Task-based LanguageTeaching (TBLT) to adult college students' oral English training. The action researchaims to help adult college students to improve their oral English through the TBLTapproach and help teachers to revise the traditional teaching method. If the TBLTapproach turns out to work well in the research, it can be applied to oral Englishteaching so as to improve adult college learners and other learners' oral English.There are some researches on TBLT, but few of them are carried out to improve adultcollege students' oral English. Therefore, it is necessary to do such a research.
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2. Literature Review
2.1 The Studies on Action Research
Action research (AR) is the main research method of this thesis. In recent years，action research has become increasingly popular in second language teaching circles.In this part, the definitions，characteristics, steps as well as previous studies of actionresearch both abroad and in China will be presented. The concept of action research first appeared in America in the early 20 century.It was coined by Collier and further developed by social psychologist Kurt Lewin. Upto now，there are several definitions of action research made by different researchersand educators, which are listed in the following chart. Action research in teaching field has a relatively big difference with traditionaleducational study. In action research, it is teachers themselves who put forward theresearch topics and carry out the research. Teachers are the leaders all the way andparticipate in the whole process of the study. Action research in teaching field has an emphasis on the cooperation amongteachers，teachers and scientific researchers, as well as teachers and related leadersand other staff.
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2.2 The Studies on Task-based Language Teaching
In this part, the author will introduce the researches on task-based languageteaching (TBLT) which comprise definitions of tasks，features, principles andframework of TBLT, as well as previous studies on TBLT abroad and in China. According to Niman (2011)，"the concept of ‘task，has become an importantelement in syllabus desi糾，classroom teaching and learner assessment. It underpinsseveral significant research agendas, and it has influenced educational policy-makingin both ESL and EFL settings" (p.l).Long (1985) argues that “狂 target task is a piece of work undertaken for oneselfor for others, freely or for some reward. Thus examples of tasks include painting afence, dressing a child，filling out a form and helping someone across a road" (p. 89),Breen (1987) defines that a pedagogical task is "any structured language learningendeavor which has a particular objective, appropriate content, a specified workingprocedure, and a range of outcomes for those who undertake the task，，(p.23).Skehan (1998) puts forward five key characteristics of a task: "meaning isprimary; learners are not given other people's meaning to regurgitate; there is somesort of relationship to comparable real-world activities; task completion has somepriority; the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome".
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3. Research Design .......... 20
3.1 Subjects ...... 20
3.2 Research Instruments ......22
3.2.1 Pre- and Post-questionnaires...... 25
3.2.2 Pre- and Post-tests...... 26
3.2.3 Mid- and Post-interviews...... 27
3.3 Planning ...... 29
4. Implementation of Action Plans and Data Analysis...... 30
4.1 hnplementation of Action Plans...... 30
4.2 Data Analysis ...... 35
4.3 Answers to the Research Questions......39
5. Conclusion ...... 53
5.1 Major Findings of the Study...... 53
5.2 Pedagogical Implications...... 54
5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study...... 55
4. Implementation of Action Plans and Data Analysis
4.1 Implementation of Action Plans
The author applied Task-based Language Teaching model to her oral Englishteaching. There were two class periods (80 minutes) for oral English course on everySunday afternoon. According to the three stages of Willis's framework of TBLT in theliterature review, the author divided each class into pre-task，task-cycle and languagefocus (post-task) stage.At the first class of the new semester，the author introduced the TBLT approachto the students and told them it was the new teaching model which would be used inoral English course of this semester. According to the TBLT model，each class wascomposed of three parts, namely, pre-task, while-task and post-task. The 20 studentsweare divided into five groups.
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Conclusion
This chapter is the conclusion part of the thesis，which is composed of majorfindings of the study, pedagogical implications as well as limitations and suggestionsfor fiirther study. The present study is a 14-week action research on the application of task-basedlanguage teaching method to the improvement of adult junior college students' oralEnglish. After the data analysis of different research instruments and reflection on the14-week oral English teaching, there are some findings of the research study. Thefollowing is some major findings of the study concluded by the author. Of all the major findings，the most significant finding of this action research is theeffectiveness of the new task-based language teaching model on the improvement ofthe students' oral English ability, which can be seen from the comparison ofpre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire, pre-test and post-test as well as theinterviews.
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Reference (omitted)