The Study On Application To Task-based Grammar Teaching In Chinese Senior School

Grammar is an indispensable aspect of language. It is also an important and difficult part in Chinese students' language learning. Traditionally, grammar is taught by 3Ps approach, in which teacher first teaches some grammatical rules, and then students try to remember these rules. This approach proves to be ineffective and give both teachers and students much stress. The present mainstream is the communicative approach, which advocates fluency over accuracy and emphasizes language in use. In China, it has been many years since communicative teaching method was accepted and used. But there are many misunderstandings about communication principles no matter on theory or practice. The most obvious problem is: Is it necessary to teach grammar any more in communicating classes? What is the place of grammar in language communication? To some students, even teachers, grammar seems to become a taboo. Under such circumstances, some questions have to be reevaluated: Should grammar instruction be renovated? Why should grammar be learnt? What is the effective way to teach grammar in the classroom? This thesis points out that both the traditional grammar instruction and neglect of grammar have brought negative effect to English learning, so it is high time to reform grammar instruction. Finally, it probes an efficient way, Task-based instruction, to teach grammar for senior high school students. A task-based approach is supposed to be an effective method in promoting learners' language competence. In this thesis, a research was conducted on the Attributive Clause in order to probe into the validity and feasibility of the Task-based Instruction (TBI) in grammar teaching. One hundred and seventeen students participated in the experiment. There were fifty-nine students in the experimental group and fifty-eight students in the controlled group. Task-based grammar teaching was used in the experiment class, while traditional teaching approach in the controlled class. The experiment lasted eight weeks and data were collected through language tests. SPSS software was used to make analysis of the data gained from the research. Results indicated that Task-based Instruction did better in improving learners' grammatical competence. It was also discovered that there existed significant difference about the maintenance of the gains from the experiment.