A Research On Rural-Area Junior High School English Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices In Grammar Teaching From The Perspective Of Activity-Based English Learning

Grammar learning is an important part of students’ foreign language learning.Students in junior high school begin to learn English grammar systematically,so how to help students memorize,understand and use grammar knowledge flexibly has always been the focus of junior high school English teaching.The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition)advocates the learning concepts of“learning through experience”,“application through practice” and “innovation through transfer”.According to them,Teachers are encouraged to help students learn and apply knowledge,skills and strategies through learning activities,namely “learning and understanding”,“application and practice” and “transfer and innovation” based on the discourse.Then students express their personal views and attitudes around the theme,and they need to solve real problems,finally to cultivate students’ core competence.However,at present,junior high school English grammar teaching attaches too much importance to teach grammatical form,the situation and purpose of language use are ignored,and so does the function of language to express meaning.This trend is more obvious in rural-area secondary schools.Therefore,it is necessary to investigate rural-area English teachers’ beliefs and practices on grammar teaching from the perspective of Activity-based English Learning,which is helpful to help them establish correct beliefs and teaching grammar more effectively.Based on Freeman’s Three-dimensional Grammar Teaching and the Activity-based English Learning advocated by education reform,this study takes 15 English teachers in a rural school in Chengdu as research object,the research data is collected through questionnaire,classroom observation and semi-structured interview.The thesis mainly discusses rural-area English teachers’ beliefs and practices in grammar teaching,and the author analyzes the possible reasons that cause their incorrect beliefs and practices.The study reveals that(1)In terms of teachers’ grammar teaching beliefs,100% of teachers believe that students should do meaningful grammar exercises.And after learning a grammatical structure,teachers should let students apply it to new situations.Secondly,most teachers believe that teachers should create real situations,present sample sentences,and combine the form,meaning and usage of grammatical structures.At the same time,teachers should require students to complete grammar exercises and communicative grammar exercises based on the discourse.As for whether teachers should point out all the mistakes made by students in the language production stage,73.33% of teachers held a positive attitude.In terms of whether the grammar rules should be explained by teachers or explored by students,as well as students’ repetitive mechanical exercises,teachers are quite divergent.The above data shows that most teachers’ beliefs on grammar teaching is correct and meets the requirements of the new curriculum standards.However,in the aspects of grammar teaching focus,grammar practice activities and the role of teachers need improvements,and raise teachers’ awareness of grammar teaching.(2)Knowledge-oriented grammar teaching is still the mainstream of teaching,and the creation of situations is relatively single.Thirdly,teacher provides students with limited sample sentences for grammatical structures.Moreover,the grammar homework assigned by teachers is detached from students’ real life and is not flexible.In general,there is still a gap between their grammar teaching practices and their beliefs,and they need more learning and training.(3)Through interview,the author summarizes the causes of the problems in four points.Firstly,due to the teachers’ limited pragmatic competence,the diversity of creating situation and sample sentences is limited.Most teachers are used to teacher-centered classrooms,so they are not accustomed to inquiry-based learning,and are not good at designing student-centered learning activities.Thirdly,the vast majority of teachers rely too much on textbooks,so the limited ability of developing teaching resources resulting in the simple teaching materials.At last,although all of them have received various types of teacher training,most of them are theoretical and lack of training on operable learning activity design.Finally,combined with the theoretical basis of this study and the requirements of education reform,the author raises relevant suggestions for rural junior high school English grammar teaching,such as increasing the training resources of teachers’ grammar teaching,then more opportunities for cooperation and communication between urban and rural schools should be provided.In addition,strengthening rural-area teachers’ theoretical learning of the Activity-based English learning,and modifying the evaluation methods in grammar class is involved as well.It is expected to provide useful reference for junior high school English grammar teaching in rural schools.