The Task-based Approach To English Grammar Teaching In The Senior Middle School

It has been debated whether English grammar should be taught in the seniormiddle school EFLT. What is a more proper way of grammar teaching? How can thecommunicative performance and language accuracy be balanced in the senior middleschool EFLT? There are two extreme tendencies: the traditional PPP (presentation,practice and production) approach to English teaching focuses too much on Englishgrammar explanation, pattern exercises and reciting of English grammar rules, whilethe other tendency avoids any English grammar teaching. Shortcomings of the twoways have been very obvious. The newly published "Examination Instructions for2005 NMET" claims to expand the assessment of language knowledge, and thestudents are required to use the fundamental English grammar knowledge. Thismanifests the importance of English grammar teaching in China's English classes.New English Curriculum Standard for the Senior Middle School (2003) advocates thetask-based approach, which is an integrate way. Theoretically, the task-basedapproach is an ideal approach which can simultaneously avoid the shortcomings ofboth the traditional PPP which focuses too much on tedious grammar rules memoryand it's unable to develop the communicative competence and the other tendency thatfocuses too much on language fluency but ignores language accuracy.In order to identify the effect of the task-based approach in the senior middleschool English grammar teaching under the present examination situation in EFLT, anempirical research as a comparative study was performed. Data were collected via thefollowing instruments: pre-test and post-test, questionnaire surveys, interviews,classroom observation and the experiment. The experiment was designed in thefollowing ways: the experimental class received the task-based approach to Englishgrammar teaching while the controlled class received the traditional PPP approach toEnglish grammar teaching. The study attempts to answer the following questions:1) Will the task-based approach to English grammar teaching in the seniormiddle school EFLT improve the learners' English grammar level more effectivelythan the traditional PPP approach?2) Will the task-based approach to English grammar teaching in the seniormiddle school EFLT increase the learners' learning interest, confidence, learningstrategies and motivation more greatly than the traditional PPP approach?The examination results from the three-week experiment indicate no significantdifference in English grammar proficiency measured according to the popular NMET(National Matriculation English Test) between the learners taught with the task-basedapproach to English grammar teaching and those taught with the traditional PPPapproach, but the results from questionnaires, interviews and classroom observationindicate that the learners taught with the task-based approach improve their Englishlearning interest, confidence, learning strategies and motivation more greatly thanthose taught with the traditional PPP approach. Generally speaking, the task-basedapproach is more effective for English grammar learning and teaching than thetraditional PPP approach to the senior middle school EFLT. During theimplementation of the task-based approach, how to combine English grammar withthe need of communication and make English grammar use essential in Englishcommunication is the most important key to the success for the task-based learning.