Research On College English Grammar Teaching From Constructivism Point Of View

The role that grammar teaching plays in English teaching has been a controversial topic. The long-term poor effect of English teaching is usually attributed to spending too much time in teaching linguistic form. As is pointed out by an applied linguistics expert, we teach English so badly because we teach grammar so well. The English grammar teaching in our country has ever been in a dilemma: on the one hand the traditional teaching method seems to be lack of attraction, survey revealing the poor effect of grammar teaching and the universal dissatisfaction from teachers and students; on the other, the importance of grammar teaching is neglected. A high premium is again put on grammar teaching when people find some problems with the learners' accuracy in using language under the guidance of the communicative language teaching. Grammar teaching has always been in an awkward predicament. In fact, the grammar of most students is not up to standard as expected. Therefore no teaching of grammar or just teaching a little grammar will make it hard for the students to better their grammar. While with grammar taught, the students don't feel it necessary to learn grammar as if they had already known all the rules. As a result, teachers, especially young teachers, feel at a loss whether to teach grammar, what to teach, how to teach, and to what degree to teach. Teachers are not sure of the best way to teach: whether to pick grammar out, for instance, offering grammar class, teaching some grammar in intensive reading classes, or to let students acquire grammar in communication in the course of accomplishing certain tasks. The current grammar teaching is in an anarchic state, that is, lack of text, class hours and quality guarantee. Undoubtedly neither English teaching researchers nor English teachers have ever denied the necessity of grasping grammar. Furthermore, teaching practice has proved that grammar teaching contributes a lot to the English teaching. Almost no communicative activities can go on if the grammar level of the students is too low. On the basis of the analysis of the present condition of college English grammar, this dissertation adopts constructivism as its research perspective, trying to prove how the students involved in a concrete activity take the initiative in grasping the structure of grammar in the form of discussion through setting up scaffolding.Constructivism first emerged in the field of philosophy and psychology, while now it's widely applied in the field of education. Researchers hold that one of the most important developments in education is the increasingly significant role that constructivism theory plays in both teaching and learning. As constructivism expands and deepens the research on education theory, and effectively guides the activity and practice in all education subjects, it's regarded as the modern and effective model in guiding education and practice. Constructivism learning overcomes the drawbacks of obtaining knowledge in a superficial, isolated and mechanical way, which conforms to the current education notion to train the talented bearing originality, initiative and cooperation. Against the background of the on-going college English teaching reform and on the basis of the relevant study done before, this dissertation endeavors to enhance the grammar teaching effect and help students develop both of the linguistic competence and communicative competence. Based on constructivism theory, especially its activity theory, mediation theory and ZPD theory, and in the light of the large-scale questionnaire, interview and the students' writing, this dissertation proposes six grammar teaching principles and sets up grammar teaching model, making further explanation of our view with the examples of subjunctive mood teaching.This dissertation consists of six parts. The first part is introduction. The social background of this work is the increasingly deepening college English teaching reform. Grammar is an indispensable part of college English teaching reform, and any reform can make certain impact on grammar teaching. Moreover, we also make an introduction of the research problem, the research value, the innovative points, the research approach and the structure of this dissertation. The second part is literature review. We have reviewed the historical evolution of grammar teaching, commenting on the new trend of grammar teaching research since the 1990's and on the status quo of the English grammar teaching research on the basis of constructivism. The third part begins with constructivism, grammar and grammar teaching, emphasizing the main theory background of this research, that is, activity theory of constructivism, mediation theory and ZPD. The fourth part includes questionnaire, interview and the analysis of the students' writing. The questionnaire involves two colleges and universities in Shanghai and one college in Jiangxi. The three colleges and universities differ on their characters. The teachers and students surveyed total 711, the data of which is analyzed with SPSS11.0. The fifth part is at the very core of this dissertation. In terms of the problems revealed in the survey and the theory of constructivism, this dissertation proposes six grammar teaching principles, and construct grammar teaching model under the guidance of constructivism theory, expounding the activities in three phases. The last part is the conclusion of the whole dissertation, pointing out the value and the weak points of the study, also the orientation of the potential research work.