The Application Of Grammar Teaching In Chinese Vocational College English Classes-A Communicative Approach

Grammatical knowledge is traditional viewed as the most important so that formal instruction is made the goal of English language teaching and the ability of using the language is totally neglected. With the development of linguistics, psychology and pedagogy, people are taking a new look at foreign language teaching, and grammar is also endowed with a new meaning, which reflects on a new linguistic conception. This new conception regards language not merely as a system of rules, but a tool for human communication. And accordingly, the traditional methods of teaching grammar should be reformed and the Communicative Approach is advocated.Through theoretical analysis and study, the thesis makes a brief overview on three typical traditional methods in foreign language teaching, including Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method and Audio-Lingual Method. It also focuses on relevant theories about Communicative Approach. From these approaches, we are able to have a general understanding of the development of grammar teaching, which is helpful and valuable for the present grammar teaching.In addition, an experiment was conducted to test whether Communicative Approach can be integrated to grammar teaching. The pre-test and post-test were conducted to both the Experimental Class and the Control Class. During the four-month experiment, the Control Class was taught in traditional grammar teaching method; however, the Experimental Class was treated with Communicative Approach. Results from the experiment indicate that teaching grammar in communicative instruction can improve both the students'communicative competence and their linguistic knowledge more effectively than that in traditional methods.