An Empirical Study Of Classroom Interaction In Grammar Teaching

Concerning English grammar, some students feel bored, even frustrated since theyare in high school. In vocational-technical colleges (VTC), the teaching curriculum isdifferent from that in high school, whether English grammar teaching should be paidattention to is a question. Actually some students are poor in English in VTC, one ofthe reasons is that they do not have a good command of English grammar. So to studyclassroom interaction (CI) in English grammar teaching in VTC becomes the aim ofthis thesis.In this thesis, based on the theory of cooperative learning (CL) and Krashen’saffective filter hypothesis (AFH), CI is put forward as an instruction employed ingrammar teaching to improve English grammar learning (EGL) achievement of thenon-English majors in VTC. Due to the special features of non-English majors in VTC,this study is undertaken to address the following questions:1. What is the present state of CI for English grammar teaching of non-Englishmajors in VTC?2. Do students in teacher-student interaction (TSI) outperform those instudent-student interaction (SSI) in learning English grammar items in VTC?3. Do students in TSI outperform those in TSI in retention of English grammaritems in VTC?4. Can CI arouse students’ interest in learning English grammar?To answer these questions, this study compares the effects of TSI and SSI instructions for grammar acquisition in English as a foreign language (EFL). Twoclasses of non-English major learners (N=60) from a vocational college were involvedin the study. One class with16girls and14boys had TSI instruction in grammar lesson,and the other with17girls and13boys had SSI instruction in grammar lesson.Questionnaires, a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design and an interview were used toget data. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and SPSS19.0was usedto analyze the data.The results show that the teacher usually teaches grammar within few CI. Sincethe communicative competence is the ultimate goal for students learning English inVTC, there are no respective grammar teaching materials for non-English majors andthe class hour for grammar learning is limited. As for the students’ grammar abilities,most of them consider that they are poor in English, especially in English grammarsince in high school. It is necessary for them to learn English grammar in VTC. In theexperiment, the two types of CI led to more learning and retention of grammaticalknowledge than teacher-centered instruction. Although retention rates of EGL weresimilar in TSI and SSI conditions and the retention rates were lower than learning ratesin both conditions, there is a trend that students in TSI perform significantly better thanthose in SSI in EGL. According to data from the questionnaire and the interview, theeffectiveness of CI in English grammar teaching is satisfactory. The results also provethat learners’ learning interest is important in EGL and CI can arouse learners’ learningdesire.This research has some pedagogical implications, as they inform teachers in VTCof the importance of CI in grammar lesson and of an effective method to arouse learning desire of learners’ through CI. And teachers should consider CI and learners’learning interest while designing their grammar classes.