The Application Of Activity-Based Modal To English Grammaring Teaching In Grade Seven

Grammar plays an important role in English language learning. But as for how to teach grammar, different people have different opinions. During the development of grammar instruction, some believed it is necessary to teach grammar and it is widely received that grammar teaching has to be taught through mechanical repetition and remembering some rules which may lead to an unsatisfied results that students are able to do the written test but are poor in communication. What’s more, it is not difficult to find that such learning method may cause a decrease in motivation in the long run. Communicative teaching method doesn’t solve the existing problem. It attaches more on communication than the form of language and the demand on grammar structure is far less than the former teaching approach. As a result, the accuracy can’t be guaranteed which is not helpful in English learning.In order to change the status quo of the grammar teaching as well as rectifying the partial understanding of grammar teaching, Larsen Freeman regards grammaring as the fifth skill as listening, speaking, reading and writing. As the other four skills, a good command of grammaring relies on enough practice. Another scholar, Penny Ur who attempted to remove the misunderstanding that grammar teaching can be only taught in a boring way, had put forward an idea that grammar practice can be taught through active and vivid activities. Based on these two experts’ theories, this study suggests grammaring skill be obtained by activity-based modal through which grammar will be linked to communication or game-like. One thing has to be mentioned is that the activity should be lifelike and the principle of the class will be formed in activity, student-centered and aimed for strategy cultivation. Besides, the difficulty of activity should be gradedly designed for grammaring class. This thesis is aimed to test the effectiveness of activity-based modal in grammaring education. The hypothesis of the research is listed as below:1. The activity-based modal can enhance students’ interest and stimulate their intrinsic motivation and class involvement towards English grammaring learning to a great extent.2. Grammaring can be achieved with a more lasting memory for students and a more effective level will be acquired in the activity-based modal comparing to the traditional teaching method.3. Communicative competence can be promoted more considerably by grammaring through activity –based modal than with traditional teaching method.The participants are 30 students from HZXDF school, who have been learning New Concept English for two years. The study lasted for one month. The two classes were labeled as experiment class and control class. The experiment class was taught grammar in activity-based modal and the control class was taught the same grammar content in the traditional way. Five instruments including tests, class observation, interview, questionnaires and survey were applied in the study. The final examination of the New Concept English(Book 1) is used as the pre-test. All the data are collected and analyzed by SPSS19.0.The major findings of this investigation are summarized below:Improvements have been found not only in communicative competence but also in written test in the experimental class when we take a glance of the difference between the pre-test and the post-test score. Class involvement is greatly improved through activities. Students may find it easier to get involved in activity which is meaningfully designed for grammaring exercising instead of the meaningless repetition of pattern work. As more opportunities are given for communicating and interacting with each other, the classroom atmosphere is enjoyable and relaxing. Grammaring can be achieved with a more lasting memory for students through lifelike activities and knowledge will be effectively acquired in the activity-based modal compared to the traditional teaching method.Obviously, despite there does have advantages of activity-based modal, teachers are still confronted with several challenges. More demand will be imposed on teachers as to how to design more effective and lifelike activities in which learners are more likely to engage in communication. However, the activity-based modal does bring us a new view to grammar instruction.