Abstract
This chapter covers a series of issues in English as a foreign language education in China by focusing on communicative language teaching and task-based language teaching and assessment. It reports how TBLT has been introduced in China and its role in the National English Curriculum Standards (Ministry of Education 2011); how language ability is perceived in the NECS and to what extent TBLT and task-based assessment are accepted by a test-driven context, classroom teachers and the problems that come along with task-based language teaching and assessment.
To approach these issues, the chapter first introduces the English education system in China in order to make it explicit how English functions in this system, how students and teachers are affected by it and how it is implemented when a new approach is advocated. Subsequently, it presents the NECS for primary and secondary schools and the existing problems in language teaching and language testing. Finally, challenges and problems for implementing task-based language teaching and assessment in English as a foreign language context are identified and trends in language assessment claimed.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Elementary and high school education in mainland China are referred to as “Basic Education”.
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These numbers do not include millions of college students, post-graduate students, students in adult schools, vocational high schools, special education schools and pre-school education institutions.
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Cheng Xiaotang, a member of the NECS writing group and professor of English in the English Department, Beijing Normal University.
- 5.
To know more about teaching methodology being culturally neutral, see Cook, V., & Li. W. (2009) Applied linguistics and language teaching in the twenty-first century. In V. Cook & Li W. (Eds.), Introduction to Contemporary Applied Linguistics. London: Continuum.
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This chapter was supported by the “Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” (005-105563GK).
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Luo, S. (2014). Task-Based Language Teaching and Assessment in Chinese Primary and Secondary Schools. In: Coniam, D. (eds) English Language Education and Assessment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-071-1_13
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