The Significance Of Systematic Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Passives In EFL Passive Voice Teaching

Although grammar-translation teaching method has been criticized widely, grammar teaching still plays a very important role in English teaching in China. Grammar is a set of rules of a language. It constructs the main frame of the language. Therefore, grammar to language is like the frame to a building. Without a good command of grammar in language learning is like a building without a solid frame. It is said that language learners can acquire the grammar of a language through communication. However, Chinese English learners have few opportunities to acquire English grammar through communication, especially in developing areas such as Guizhou. English learners who Studied English before the 1980s were mostly taught with the grammar-translation teaching method. After the 1980s, a reform in foreign language teaching was widely implemented all over the country. The communicative teaching method was given special attention for improving learners' communicative ability.However, in recent years, English teaching seems to be trapped in a bottleneck. English learning and teaching becomes increasingly difficult once learners get to the intermediate or advanced level. One of the causes of this phenomenon is teachers' misunderstanding of the communicative teaching method. Communicative teaching method was considered one of the best methods in EFL teaching. Some college English teachers lack theoretical knowledge of the communicative teaching method. They think classes should be operated only in the communicative way. Therefore, English teachers often dare not teach grammar in class. The misunderstanding of the communicative teaching method has greatly affected students' English learning. College students' writings are often full of grammatical mistakes. This phenomenon has attracted the attention of linguists and educators.Specifically concerning English passive voice teaching, we find that the situation is even worse. The present author has made an interview. Thirty one students of English majors took part in this interview. From the interview we can find that more than half of the interviewees have no clear understanding of English passive voice. The present author has also made a quasi-test. From the results of the quasi-test we find that the mistakes that the students committed are mainly of two types. They are interlingual errors and intralingual errors. In this thesis, the researcher holds the hypothesis that English passive voice will be better mastered through the way of systematic contrast of NL(native language) and TL(target language) than teaching without systematic contrast in EFL teaching.The empirical study was carried out among 70 English majors by employing a quantitative research method. They were in two natural classes: one class was taken as the experimental group(N=35) and the other as the control group(N=35). They were taught by the same teacher, with the same teaching material but with different teaching methods. The experimental group was given 8 weeks' grammar teaching through the way of systematic contrast of English and Chinese passives while the control group followed the teaching method without systematic contrast between English and Chinese passives.The present thesis consists of six chapters:In Chapter One, the status quo of college English teaching, the significance of this study and the structure of this thesis are presented. Chapter Two is literature review. There are two parts in this chapter: part one introduces the present situation of contrastive analysis at home and abroad. Part two discusses the studies on English and Chinese passives.In Chapter Three, the differences between English and Chinese passives are contrasted systematically.Chapter Four is the research design and methodology.Chapter Five is data presentation and discussion.In Chapter Six, conclusions are drawn and pedagogical implications are presented for teachers and future researchers.