Task-Based English Teaching and Assessment Program for the 7^(th) Graders: Top Young Diplomats

Abstract

This was a task-based English teaching and assessment program for the 7^(th)-grade students in a Taipei Municipal Junior High School, which was located beside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many foreign guests or delegates visit this school each year. Being responsible for the reception of these foreign guests, students had to introduce the school, described their study life, and even had a tour together with the guests around Po-Ai District in Taipei. In performing the tasks, students demonstrated their English listening and speaking abilities. Their communicative competence was also shown in interacting appropriately with their foreign visitors. Taking advantage of the context resources, the researcher, also a teacher of the school, integrated the task-based English training program into the oral English instruction class, aiming to motivate students to use English for real and meaningful communication in the target language use situations. The tasks included greeting, answering questions, giving directions, reading and explaining maps, describing school teachers, students, learning subjects, and activities. Students were also expected to take part in multi-participant interactions. After the tasks were practiced in class, task-based tests were given during the teaching process accordingly. For the assessment, the teacher concentrated on how individual students used the target language to achieve their communicative purpose effectively and efficiently. Both language usage and use were evaluated with the latter receiving more weighting. Considering the proficiency level of the students and the nature of spoken language, the language usage focused on the production of phrases, clauses, and simple sentences. Language use, on the other hand, emphasized basic communicative effectiveness and task completion which received more attention on the rating scale. Carefully drawn up banding systems and rating scales were given to illustrate the operation oftask-based assessment in the project.