From the perspective of Activity Theory (AT), this paper analyses the author's task-based teaching practice of English journal and newspaper reading and adopts a qualitative study approach to examine the influence of task design on students’ reading competence development. The tasks are designed mainly in the form of group work, highlighting the students as the subject and the regulating role of mediating artefacts, community, rules and division of labour. The data of students’ reflection journals, reading reports and group work records show that after the training of a series of tasks for eight units, students’ ability in reading English newspapers has been greatly developed, and they are also more confident in speaking and writing.