The Application Of Explicit Interactive Task Instruction To The Teaching Of English Grammar In Middle School

In foreign language teaching, grammar has witnessed a few ups and downs during the past century. The Natural Method, from which the Direct Method originated, neglected grammar instruction. The Direct Method, marking the beginning of scientific foreign language pedagogy, adopted teaching grammar through induction. Then in Audio-lingual approach, sentences patterns took the place of grammar. In the 1970s, Notional-functional Syllabus tried to replace grammar but failed in theory and practice. Generally speaking, the foreign language teaching methods waxed and waned in popularity. Each new method on one aspect broke from the old one, but on the other, it took with it some of the positive aspects of the previous ones. At the same time, each new method also had some disadvantages.Traditionally, grammar has been the sine qua non of language teaching, although grammar teaching in some aspects is questioned, for example, should grammar be taught at all? Is it a hindrance rather than a help? For a long period, it was simply taken for granted to be a desirable part of classroom language teaching. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the role of grammar in English language teaching. Researchers want to find out an approach through which we can reap the benefits to form an integrated, unified, communicative approach to grammar teaching that is no longer characterized by a series of methods. Communicative competence, including grammatical competence, stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching. Traditional grammar teaching approaches which stress forms could be combined with communicative approach.The author puts forward the term Explicit Interactive Task Instruction borrowed from R Ellis's explicit consciousness-raising task model (2003) refer to the instructional strategies employed to raise learners' conscious awareness of form or structure of the target language when improving communicative competence. First the author reviews the history of foreign language teaching and elaborates the current situation of grammar teaching in Middle School, then explores how to apply Explicit Interactive Task Instruction to the teaching of grammar by analyzing series of cases, at last the author investigates, analyzes the experiment data, questionnaires and makes a conclusion that...