An Investigation Into English Attributive Clause Grammatical Competence Of Senior One Students Based On Three-dimensional Grammar Theory

English grammar is an important part of English language knowledge,and it can affect the accuracy of comprehension and expression of the language.The cultivation of English grammatical competence is always an important goal of foreign language teaching.It plays an important role in the language acquisition of foreign language learners,and it is also a part of communicative competence.The National English Curriculum Standard for General Senior High Schools revised in2020 also points out that grammar knowledge is an integration of "form-meaning-use".Under this requirement,English teaching in senior high school pays more attention to the teaching of grammar in form,meaning and use dimensions.This is in accord with the three-dimensional grammar theory proposed by Larsen-Freeman in 2003.She inspired people to do research in grammar,teach and learn grammar from the form,meaning and use dimensions to improve the grammatical competence of students.Therefore,studying the current situation of high school students’ grammatical competence can help to improve the English grammar teaching efficiency of high school to a certain extent and improve students’ grammatical competence.Larsen-Freeman’s three-dimensional grammar theory defines grammatical competence as the ability to use grammar structures accurately,meaningfully and appropriately.Based on three-dimensional grammar theory,input and output hypothesis and constructive learning theory,the thesis chooses 335 first year senior high school students from a normal high school in Wu Hai city as the subjects and takes the attributive clause as the specific grammatical research project.Data were collected through test,questionnaire,semi-structure interview and classroom observation to answer the following three research questions:（1）what is the current situation of attributive clause grammatical competence of Senior One students in form,meaning and use dimensions based on three-dimensional grammar theory?（2）What are the differences of attributive clause grammatical competence of Senior One students in high-level,intermediate-level and low-level groups in form,meaning and use dimensions?（3）What are the possible factors that may influence the attributive clause grammatical competence of Senior One students?The research data were analyzed by SPSS26.0 and Nvivo11,and the results of the attributive clause grammar test show that（1）The overall English attributive clause grammatical competence of senior high school students is relatively low（M=53.06）.They showed imbalance in the form,meaning and use dimension.Their attributive clause GC in form dimension is the best（M=68.39）,in meaning dimension is the second（M=52.11）,and in use dimension is the worst（M=35.20）.（2）The attributive clause GC of students from high-level group is significantly stronger than that of students from intermediate and low level groups in form,meaning and use dimensions（sig.=.000）.The form dimension of the attributive clause GC of students from high level group is stronger than that in the meaning dimension,but the difference is not significant（sig.=.465）.And that in the meaning dimension is significantly stronger than that in the use dimension（sig.=.001）.The attributive clause GC of students from intermediate-level group is significantly stronger than that of students from low-level groups in form,meaning and use dimensions（sig.=.000）.The attributive clause GC of students from intermediate and low level groups in the form dimension is significantly stronger than that in the meaning dimension,and the meaning dimension is significantly stronger than that in the use dimension（sig.=.000）.（3）The results of questionnaires,interviews and classroom observation show that the main factor that leads to the fact that students’ attributive clause GC is relatively low is their learning deficiency of attributive clause in use dimension（M=3.69）.Students pay more attention to the form of attributive clause.They pay relatively less attention to the meaning dimension of attributive clause（M=4.06）.This may be one of the reasons why students’ attributive clause GC in meaning dimension is lower than that in form dimension.And they pay the least attention to practicing the use of attributive clause（M=3.69）.This may lead to their weakness in use dimension of attributive clause.Students from all levels pay most attention to the learning of form dimension of attributive clause while paying least attention to the use dimension of attributive clause.This is one of the reasons why their attributive clause GC in form,meaning and use dimensions are in descending order.High-level group pay more attention to the learning of the form dimension and the meaning dimension of the attributive clause,but less to the learning of the use dimension of the attributive clause.The low-level group spent more time on the form dimension of the attributive clause and less time on the meaning and use dimension of the attributive clause.The research also shows that the young teachers of the school are good at using new teaching methods such as mind mapping to assist students in learning.Secondly,some old teachers have poor ability to use modern information technology.Based on the research results,the author summarizes the shortcomings of this study and gives corresponding suggestions on how to improve students’ English attributive clause grammatical competence in the future.