A Study On The Current Situation Of Grammar Teaching In Senior High School Under The New Curriculum Standard For High School English

Whether grammar should be taught and how it should be taught as well as how theconflicts between communicative competence and accuracy of language should beconciliated is always discussed heatedly in the field of foreign language teaching. Thetraditional methodology emphasized that grammar plays the most important role inlanguage teaching so it makes grammar teaching the final goal of language teaching andneglects the cultivation of students’ communicative competence. Grammar is definedwidely acceptably by Larsen Freeman who holds the view that three categories should betaken into account concerning the complexity of grammar, that is, the form, meaning andits use. Grammatical form has been laid much emphasis in Grammar Translation Methodwhich takes a leading position in English teaching over a very long time．However, thenew English curriculum standard for senior high school，which was issued by Ministry ofEducation in2007, puts forward the idea of learner-centered class, thus changing themisconception of the over-lecturing on grammatical rules. Therefore, a great manyresearches on how to teach grammar more effectively have been conducted. Differentnew grammar teaching methods came into being successively, such as communicativeapproach and task-based method in grammar teaching, etc. Nowadays, the demands foradvocating quality-oriented education are becoming higher；therefore，it is necessary andsignificative to investigate whether teachers have altered the traditional grammar teachingmethod，and whether they take care of students individuality, and whether they have madea point of developing students competence in using grammar．Apart from that, teachersand students attitudes towards grammar teaching are also worth studying and discussing．With a detailed data collection from two senior high schools, the thesis has appliedresearch methods like classroom observation，questionnaires and interviews to investigatethe current situation of grammar teaching in senior high school, including the commonways teachers adopt to teach grammar, teachers’ attitudes to grammar teaching, and students’ attitudes to teaching methods. Participants in the study are8teachers and152students from two senior high schools in Wuhan.The study demonstrates that the dominant way of teaching grammar in senior highschool is still the deductive approach. Teachers over-lectures on grammatical rules,neglecting the students’ communicative ability. Students universally hold the view thatgrammar learning is boring and they prefer the diversity of grammar teaching methods.Teachers believe that they highly value the deductive approach, but at the same time theyalso admit they are out of their capability to make grammar lessons appealing andinteresting due to a lack of teaching theories. Finally, the author comes up with somepracticable strategies and suggestions on grammar teaching in practice.