An Empirical Study On The Application Of Communicative Approach To English Majors’ Grammar Teaching

Traditional grammar concept defines grammar as a system of knowledge or rules;therefore, the traditional grammar teaching usually follows the teacher-centered approach.The teacher explains the rules of the grammar and students just make some notes, domechanical sentence pattern drills, the language expressions are not accurate, students cannot apply what they know to produce spontaneous speech, the classroom atmosphere isdull and boring, the teaching effect is not well.Grammar is defined as a description of the structure of a language. It is also the wayin which linguistic units such as phrases and words are combined to make the sentences inthe language. It is defined with a new meaning because of the development of research onlanguage teaching method and applied linguistics. It is usually considered as thecombination of meaning, usage and form, so, it requires that the way of teaching grammarshould be taken language form and function into consideration. Different explanations canbe obtained in different contexts. Thus, student-centered approach should be adopted in theclassroom teaching for grammar. For the teachers, they ought to design different kinds ofteaching activities to make students enjoy learning grammar in communicativecircumstances. The responsibilities of teacher is not only to help students grasp the rightform of language, but more important, to make students know how to use these formscorrectly, know when, where, and to whom, using what kind of language expression ismore accurate and more polite.Communicative approach advocates student-centered, fostering students’ interests andenthusiasm for language learning through different kinds of teaching activities, improvingthe ability of students’ learning language in actually use. With the rising of communicativeapproach, some teachers mistake communicative approach exclude grammar teaching,however, actually, some famous researchers of communicative approach have alreadystated clearly that grammatical knowledge as an indispensable component ofcommunicative competence, its important place can not be neglected. The grammarteaching’s ultimate goal is to make students improve their communicative competence. Itis the same with the aim of communicative approach. Therefore, communicative approachhas never excluded grammar teaching. Students can understand the language betterby mastering grammar knowledge; more accurately master the language, more efficientlycommunicate with people. At present, the problem of grammar teaching lies in which grammar teaching method is more adaptable to students and to what extent grammarshould be taught.The thesis explores the feasibility and validity of the communicative approach’sapplication to the grammar teaching for English majors’ grammar teaching. There are tworesearch questions. One is whether to teach grammar by applying communicative approachis more facilitative in developing learners’ emotional factors manifested as highermotivation, lower anxiety. The other is which grammar teaching method can be morefacilitative in promoting learners’ grammatical proficiency between communicativeapproach and traditional grammar. The research instrument and data collection used instudy is questioners, language tests and SPSS software.There are two major findings: first, the subjects of experimental group who are taughtwith communicative approach study grammar with higher motivation and loweranxiety. Second, no matter communicative grammar teaching or traditional grammar theyare equal in improving learners’ grammar proficiency.