On The Grammar Teaching Mode Based On ESA Theory In Chinese Universities

At present, there are many researches about English learners’ four basic skills (listening,speaking, reading and writing). However, researches on grammar learning and teaching areoften neglected. Still less are the researches on the English majors. On CNKI,70,056articlesare found about English teaching.2,189articles are about grammar teaching. While there areonly241articles on grammar teaching for English majors, which are about0.34%of all.While “there is no doubt that a knowledge of grammatical rules is essential for the mastery ofa language: you cannot use words unless you know how they should be put together.”(PennyUr,2009) When it comes to the causes for the peripheralization of English grammar teaching,the traditional grammar teaching mode, which causes the students’ demotivation on grammarlearning, serves as one of the most important reasons. Based on Jeremy Harmer’s ESA theory(engage, study, activate), the thesis aims at exploring a proper grammar teaching mode forEnglish majors to arouse their interests and improve their language proficiency. Therefore, inthe perspective of theoretical and practical meaning, the application of ESA theory to thegrammar teaching benefits the teaching mode, students’ learning interests and languageproficiency.In order to ensure the research of reliability, feasibility and operationalization, the authorconducts an empirical study on how to apply the ESA theory to grammar teaching for Englishmajors with both qualitative and quantitative research methods, which guarantees theeffectiveness of this research from different angles. This thesis tries to answer the followingquestions:(1) Will the learners’ interests in English grammar be improved?(2) Comparedwith traditional teaching mode, will the ESA mode be more effective on English grammaracquisition?(3) What is the defect of the grammar teaching mode based on ESA theory? Thesubjects of this research are the sophomores from the School of Western Languages in MuDanjiang Normal College. The research is conducted for about four months. During theprocess of it, A and B classes are chosen as samples according to their pre-test results, thenumber of the students and the gender proportion. Class A is the experimental class, in whichESA theory is applied to the grammar teaching while class B is the control class, in whichgrammar is taught traditionally. The author makes the statistical analyses through aquestionnaire to obtain the data and carries on a pre-test and post-test. The data is analyzed onSPSS. A comparison is made between the two classes about students’ interest in grammar,teaching effect and language proficiency. The result shows that it is an effective mode for theteachers to apply the ESA theory in grammar teaching for English majors. It is widelywelcomed among the English majors from the class A. Their attitudes towards grammar have changed a lot. Both the engagement and satisfaction on a grammar class have been improved.According to the results of the post-test of the students in the class A and B, the students’language performance in the class A has been improved more. It can be easily seen that theapplication of ESA theory in English grammar teaching for English majors improve theclass-room teaching effect, raises students’ interests and enhance their language proficiency.