Teaching English Grammar With Production-oriented Approach In Senior High School Classroom: An Empirical Study

Grammar has always played a crucial role in the process of second language learning.The National English Curriculum Standards(2017 edition,2020 revised)points out that teachers should place emphasis on guiding students to understand and use new grammar knowledge in richer contexts through various teaching and practical activities to further enhance their awareness of English grammar.However,in the current English grammar teaching classroom in senior high schools,a considerable numbers of teachers continue to teach grammar in the traditional way.Under this teaching mode,students memorize numbers of grammar rules mechanically,gradually lose their interest and motivation in grammar learning,and are unable to use grammar in communication.Production-oriented approach(POA)is a teaching approach proposed by Professor Wen Qiufang,aiming to solve the problems of input-output separation and low efficiency in foreign language teaching in China.In recent years,the approach has been gradually perfected and actively put into practice by many scholars and teachers,showing the positive effects on learners’ learning attitudes and English proficiency.However,few studies have applied it to high school English grammar teaching.Therefore,this study tries to apply POA to English grammar instruction in senior high school,aiming to explore the following questions:(1)Is the POA-based grammar teaching method conductive to the improvement of students’ English grammatical performance in senior high school?(2)What are the effects of POA on senior high school students’ English grammar learning attitudes and motivation?(3)Will the role of the teacher change in the POA-based grammar teaching model? If so,what are the changes?In this study,90 students from two parallel classes of a key senior high school in Zhejiang province were chosen as the research participants.They had similar educational backgrounds and experiences and there was no significant difference in their scores of pre-test which tested students’ grammatical performance.The two classes were divided into the experimental class and the control class,each with 45 students.In the teaching experiment lasting for about four months,both classes were taught by the same English teacher with the same teaching schedules and materials,but the experimental class adopted the English grammar teaching based on POA,while the control class still followed the traditional grammar teaching model.This study not only adopted quantitative study including tests and questionnaires,but also involved qualitative study such as interviews and classroom observation.The data collected in the experiment were compared and analyzed with the help of Excel and SPSS 22.0 to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of POA in English grammar instruction in the senior high school.The results show that at the beginning of the experiment,there was no significant difference in the grammatical performance of the students in the two classes.As the teaching experiment progressed,although the students in both classes improved their grammar scores at the end of the term,the mean score of the experimental class was higher than that of the control class and the difference between the classes was significant,which indicates that the grammar teaching model based on POA can improve the students’ grammatical performance more effectively than the traditional grammar teaching.Secondly,results of the questionnaires before and after the experiment show that at the beginning of the experiment,students in the experimental and control classes did not show significant differences in their attitudes and motivation in grammar learning,but at the end of the experiment,students in the experimental class showed more positive learning attitudes and stronger motivation than students in the control class and there were significant differences between the two classes.From the results of the classroom observation sheet and interviews,it is found that under the grammar teaching instruction based on POA,students were more active in the grammar classroom,and their learning interest and autonomy were greatly enhanced.Last but not least,classroom observations and interviews reveal that the role of the teacher in grammar teaching model based on POA showed different transformations throughout the teaching process.In the traditional teaching classroom,teachers were implementers,centers and single evaluators of instruction,while in the POA class teaching model,they changed to designers,organizers,directors and collaborative evaluators who motivated learners to actively participate in learning.In conclusion,the experiment shows that the implementation of POA in English grammar instruction for senior high school students is an effective way to improve students’ grammatical performance,cultivate their interest in learning and stimulate their learning motivation.In the process of implementing the POA teaching model,teachers should play the role of “scaffolding”,provide appropriate output tasks for students of different levels,and give full play to students’ potential.