Research On Junior English Learners’ Grammatical Competence Based On Topic-based 3-D Instruction

In China’s basic education,English Curriculum Standards for Nine-Year Compulsory Education stipulate that the ultimate goal of English learning is to cultivate English learners’ overall ability of using language.More recently,the Senior Middle School English Curriculum Standards further formulate that the aim of English learning is to develop learners’ the English subject core competencies.Against such backdrop,language leaning is believed to transcend its traditional views of knowledge learning to learner’s acquisition of communicative competence driven by a variety of topics in real contexts.Accordingly,grammatical competence,as one of the key components of communicative competence,has aroused great attention among many researchers in FLT.Currently,grammatical competence is not simply viewed as its formal patterns or structural rules,but more importantly,as the abilities of using them in authentic situations.In a sense,the understanding of the nature of grammar has undergoing a great change at the theoretical level,but unfortunately,a delayed change at the practical level.According to Larsen-Freeman,grammar should be understood as the unity of form,meaning and use.The goal of grammar teaching should be believed to promote learner’s grammaring,or grammatical competence,namely,using grammar accurately,meaningfully,and appropriately.However,my research argues that the accurate,meaningful and appropriate use of grammar should be integrated into the topic-based texts in order to achieve its potential power to develop learner’s grammatical competence in teaching practice.Meanwhile,as we know,topics in national English curriculum standards have also become the guiding principle for choosing the teaching materials,including the compilation of the textbooks.Based on the aforementioned research background,this research,based theoretically on the Three-dimensional(3-D)Framework of Grammar Teaching put forward by Larsen-Freeman,intends to carry out a quasi-experimental research of grammar teaching in practice,by adopting topic-based instructional design as the content of teaching.All the participants of this quasi-experimental research come from two randomly-chosen classes of grade 8 of a junior high school in Hefei city,one class as the experimental group and the other as the control group.The duration of the research lasts about six weeks,during which teaching intervention is proceduralized and systematized.Such instruments as questionnaires,interviews,pre-and post-tests are employed in collecting data so as to document the developmental trajectory of learner’s grammatical competence,in this case,the simple future tense.The research questions are formulated as the following:1)How do English teachers and learners in junior middle school understand the nature of grammar?2)How can the topic-based 3-D grammar model be integrated into grammar teaching of the simple future tense?3)To what extent does the topic-based 3-D grammar teaching impact learners’ development of grammatical competence of the simple future tense?According to the analysis of the data,firstly,the results show that teachers and English learners in junior middle school are more likely to understand grammar as knowledge of rules memorized by rote learning.After my teaching intervention,most participants of learners began to realize the importance of learning grammar for communicative use.Secondly,in current English context,Larsen-Freeman’s 3-D Framework can be well fit in with topic-based instructional design for teaching practice.On the one hand,learners’ interests and engagement in learning grammar,in this case,the simple future tense,are greatly aroused as it is integrated with interesting topics relating to their daily lives.On the other hand,the communicative use of grammar,or grammaring,that is,of the simple future tense in my research,is much enhanced for the accuracy,meaningfulness and appropriateness of using the simple future tense.This research argues that the topic-based 3-D model of grammar teaching can be effective and practical in Chinese English teaching context because it is well fit in with the ideology of grammar learning required in national English curriculum standards.