A Study On The Situational Teaching In The Primary English Classroom

This paper narrows down the study on situational teaching in the primary English classroom and tries to seek the answers to the following questions:1. What are the main problems in situational teaching in the primary English classroom?2. What are the possible solutions to the problems found in this research and how can primary English teachers apply the situational teaching principles and techniques in English classroom?The paper reviews the educational theories and second language learning and teaching theories as the foundation and theoretical considerations for the efficiency of situational teaching in the primary English classroom. It also reviews the research on situational teaching at home and abroad under the framework of educational theories as well as situational teaching particularly in English classroom teaching in order to discusses the value of the application of situational teaching in the primary English classroom.The tool applied in this research is mainly classroom observation. A form of"Lists for Classroom Observation of Situational Teaching"is designed specially for recording the process of the creation of situations to help students with language acquisition. The main problems found are as follows:1. loose and weak integrity situations;2. irrelevant language input in created situations;3. the far-fetched and inauthentic situations;4. ignoring the activation of students'background knowledge;5. difficult situational activities beyond the students'cognitive characteristics.The possible solutions to the above problems are suggested based on the theories of education and second language acquisition in terms of the following four principles: authenticity, significance, relevance and consistency. This paper also suggests four ways for situational teaching: 1. making use of textbooks, supplementary teaching materials and available resources to create situation to activate students'background knowledge;2. taking students'cognitive ability into consideration in creating situation to help students construct knowledge of the language;3. creating situation related to the teaching objectives and content to make input comprehensible for the students;4. adopting simulation and role-playing in English classroom.Finally, the paper presents a sample lesson to illustrate the implementation of situational teaching in the primary English classroom.