A Study On The Application Of Three-Dimensional Theory (TDT) To English Teaching In Rural Senior High School

Methodology is a hot issue in language learning and teaching since the beginning of the teaching practice. TDT does not deny methods; on the contrary, it stresses a method which is dynamic and dependent upon learners.Three-dimensional Theory advocates particularity, practicality and possibility in teaching activities. Particularity requires language pedagogy to be relevant and sensitive to a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals. Practicality asks teachers to understand and identify problems, analyze and assess information to choose the best available alternative for further critical appraisal. Possibility calls for recognition of learner's and teacher's subject-positions. In this research, possibility stresses students' stored knowledge of the world. Particularity aims for a context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy that is based on a true understanding of local linguistic and sociocultural particularities. Practicality is built up on teacher's awareness of learners' inner life.This research aims to find out the way to improve efficiencies in learning and teaching from the perspective of TDT with foci on cognition of language use in dynamic classroom activities. Two questions are proposed at the beginning of our experiment. They are: Q1: Does TDT play a role in the improvement of learning and teaching efficiency in senior high school and in what way? Q2: Are interactions by students with each other, with teaching materials and with teachers ideal ways to realize TDT?One hundred and seventy-one senior middle school students of No.1 Middle School of Zhuzhou County participate in this study. They are from three parallel classes from Class 186 to Class 188 of Grade one, and have similar average scores in the Senior High School Entrance Examination. Class 186 is the experimental class (EC). Classes 187 and 188 are the control classes (CC) without adopting TDT. The experiment is conducted within a semester from September 9, 2008 to January 1, 2009. Both the EC and the CC adopt the textbook of Advance with English.To ensure a scientific analysis of results of this experiment, pre-test and post-test are used to evaluate the efficiency of our teaching and learning along with questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. Research results analyzed through Pre-test, Post-test, Questionnaires, and Face-to-face interviews tell a lot of our experiment. From the result in pre-test, we can see no obvious difference between the three classes before the experiment. After the experiment, EC under TDT differs from CC in the improvement of learning and teaching efficiency. Questionnaires promote the information of learners' change of psychological state in learning process. And face-to-face interviews ensure dynamic cognition of learners' learning process. The originality of our research is that we do not only copy TDT, but modify it to fit teaching activities in rural senior schools. We stress that teaching activities are cognition of the dynamic classroom, and 3Is are the ways to realize TDT. What we obtain from the experiment is that TDT does work in the improvement of efficiency in teaching and learning and 3Is are ideal ways to realize TDT.