Application Of Communicative Language Teaching To English Grammar Teaching In Junior Middle School

Grammar teaching has always been one of the hot topics in foreign language teaching and in linguistic study. Traditional grammar teaching methods regard that grammatical proficiency is an important part, therefore grammar instructing is overemphasized in foreign language teaching and the competence of using the language is ignored. In1972, Hymes put forward the notion of communicative competence, and the advance of the notion makes the communicative competence the ultimate aim in foreign language teaching and learning, and grammar teaching had been regarded to be meaningless for the aim for a long period. With the development of language teaching and linguistic studies, people have begun to reconsider the importance of grammar teaching, they have realized that grammatical knowledge is an important part of the communicative competence and grammatical knowledge is not only indispensable but also the basis of the communicative competence in foreign language teaching. At present the key of the issue surrounding the foreign language teaching is how to teach grammar efficiently.Nowadays people have had a new idea to foreign language teaching along with the development of linguistics, psychology and pedagogy and the notion of grammar has been endowed with a new meaning, which reflects a new linguistic conception. This new conception regards language not only as a system of rules, but as a tool for human communication. Meanwhile, the shortcomings of abstract instruction and mechanical drills in traditional grammar teaching methods have gradually been realized. Therefore, the traditional grammar teaching methods may be reformed and grammar instructing may be carried out in the frame of Communicative Language Teaching, integrating language form with language function.This thesis explores how teachers instruct grammar by integrating language form and function and make students play an active part in the meaningful communicative activities, thus arouse the grammar awareness in the process of using the language, meanwhile cultivating learners’ability to express themselves accurately, fluently and appropriately in real-life communication.In addition, an experiment has been carried out to test whether Communicative Language Teaching can be integrated into grammar teaching in junior middle school and whether Communicative Language Teaching is superior to traditional grammar teaching methods. Two classes of Junior Two from Houzhai No.2Middle School were selected as samples. Two questionnaire surveys were made before and after the experiment, and a pre-test and a post-test were conducted to both classes. During the one-term long experiment, the experimental class was taught with CLT, while the control class was taught in traditional grammar-translation method. The results of the experiment prove that CLT can not only promote the students’English grammar proficiency but also arouse the students’interest, confidence and motivation in grammar learning more greatly than the traditional grammar-translation method. Further implications and suggestions for junior middle school teaching have been concluded in this thesis.