An Experimental Study Of English Grammar Teaching Based On Context Theory For Junior High School

It is universally recognized that grammar teaching has been playing a vital role in English teaching for Junior High.Grammar,a set of rules of language in use,determines that the language can be used normatively and accurately.Without the accurate grammar rules,people may fail to realize the communicative purpose,for the speaker’s meaning will not be correctly delivered.As a matter of a fact,in real interpersonal communication,only a few grammar rules are free from the limits of context.In most cases,the choice of grammatical forms is closely related to the context and communicative purpose.Thus,only when the teachers use the context to carry out grammar teaching in an authentic language environment can the students really acquire the contextual meaning and communicative function of the grammar form.It has been pointed out in the New English Curriculum Standards for Junior High School that “the practicality of language can’t be overlooked and students should be encouraged to get enough exposure to authentic language,experience and understand its meaning in specific context.” Currently,however,in most junior high schools grammar teaching still only focuses on the forms.The means of teaching are boring and simple.The process of language learning is dominated by teachers’ explanation.Students are required to do a lot of sentence training.The form of grammar has been isolated from its meaning and use.As a result,students’ general feel of the grammar is not good.They consider grammar as a collection of trivial language points.And the grammar they’ve acquired is disordered because of the lack of systematicness.Of course,most students show little interest in the grammar learning and are not active in class.Based on the context theory and grammar teaching theory,this study is intended to probe into the following matters:(1)what are the main problems in grammar teaching and how is the application of the context to the grammar teaching in most junior high schools?(2)How can the teachers apply the context theory to their grammar teaching? That is to say,what are the ways of creating the context in grammar teaching for junior high school students?(3)Compared to the traditional explicit grammar teaching which always focuses on the form of grammar,will the implicit grammar teaching based on the context be more efficient to reduce the mistakes and improve students ability of using grammar in real contexts? In this study,three research instruments were used: questionnaire,classroom observation and teaching experiment.It is also hoped that this study can attract great attention by teachers from classrooms,inspire people to think about their grammar teaching and arouse their re-recognition towards grammar teaching.