An Investigation Into The Teaching Of English Grammar In A Chinese Senior High School

Grammar is widely accepted as a dynamic system combined with the form,meaning and its use.For a long time,the teaching of grammar plays an indispensable role in English learning and teaching,and it always occupies a central position in English language teaching.However,with recent development of new teaching methods such as communicative language teaching,the attitude toward the teaching of grammar has changed.Extensive research has been conducted on how to teach grammar effectively,but researchers have found that teachers' and students' beliefs on grammar might affect the teaching of English grammar.It is,hence,of great significance to explore teachers' and students' perceptions of grammar teaching,and then provide some suggestions to improve the current situation of grammar teaching.This study investigated the current situation of the teaching of English grammar in a Chinese senior high school.It attempted to examine teachers' and students' beliefs about grammar and grammar teaching and explore teachers' and students' attitudes towards the application of explicit and implicit approach to the teaching of grammar.Meanwhile,it also tried to explore the difficulties teachers and students encountered in the process of grammar teaching and learning in senior high school.150 students and 30 EFL teachers from Lianhua senior high school in Pingxiang were involved in this study.The research instruments adopted in this study were questionnaire and interview and classroom observation.The questionnaire for teachers was adapted from Burgess and Etherington's study(2002)and the questionnaire for students was adapted from the one created by Schulz(1996,2001).The quantitative data was inputted into the computer and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences(SPSS,version 22.0).Based on the data collected in this study,three major findings could be summarized.First,a great majority of teachers and students realized the value of grammar and grammar teaching in English teaching and learning.They held that grammar was the framework of language and grammar teaching was an indispensable part of English teaching.Besides,most of the students also had positive attitudes towards grammar and grammar teaching.Secondly,there exist some differences in teachers' and students' attitudes towards the application of explicit and implicit approaches.Most of the teachers were more inclined to explicit grammar teaching approach in the process of grammar instruction.However,most of the students deemed that grammatical knowledge presentation in authentic,complete tasks was more effective than the traditional presentation of grammatical knowledge.Thirdly,both teachers and students have their own difficulties in grammar teaching and learning.For teachers,they found it difficult to produce tasks of a suitable level from authentic texts and difficult to correct students' errors of grammar.For the students,they felt it hard to use grammar in real communication.Based on the findings above,some pedagogical implications and suggestions on grammar teaching were proposed in this study.First,since the role of grammar is essential in English teaching,English teachers should pay attention to grammar instruction in their teaching.They should adopt more diversified methods to teach grammar.Meanwhile,students should get interested in their grammar learning.Secondly,they need to integrate both explicit and explicit teaching approaches to the teaching of grammar.In addition,the teaching method for grammar instruction should be altered from the traditional teacher-centered mode into communication-oriented approaches.Thirdly,both teachers and students should be conscious of their own roles in the process of grammar teaching and learning.They should develop competence to cope with the difficulties they meet in the teaching and learning of English grammar.