An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Transcirption Task On The Acquisition Of The English Subjunctive Mood By Chinese Senior High School Students

Subjunctive Mood is not only a hot issue among grammarians, but also is ofgreat significance in English language teaching. Taking the distinctions betweenChinese and English as well as the linguistic and cognitive complexity ofSubjunctive Mood itself into consideration, how to master Subjunctive Moodremains an obstacle to Chinese EFL learners in both English learning and in variousEnglish examinations; how to effectively teach Subjunctive Mood is also a bigchallenge to foreign language teachers. Up till now, many scholars at home andabroad have studied Subjunctive Mood, and a majority of these studies are from acognitive, functional, or pragmatic perspective to explore the internal mechanism ofSubjunctive Mood with the help of relevant linguistic theories. Besides, some otherstudies tend to focus on Subjunctive Mood from the angle of SLA, trying to give adescription of Chinese EFL learners’ mastering of this grammatical point. In view ofEnglish Subjunctive Mood teaching status quo, the present study proposes a newteaching mode by implementing Transcription Task to improve the teaching ofSubjunctive Mood in senior high school in China.It is both practical and feasible to apply Transcription Task to the learning andteaching process of Subjunctive Mood in senior high schools. As an activity fromnegotiated output to self-modification, receiving the theoretical support from OutputHypothesis, Noticing Hypothesis, and Interactive Hypothesis, Transcription Task canpromote students’ noticing of form so as to facilitate students’ form-meaningmapping of Subjunctive Mood. In addition, Transcription Task can reduce thestudents’ avoidance of using Subjunctive Mood owing to the discrepancies betweenChinese and English. Moreover, Transcription Task can help students detect errorsand mistakes, push them to probe into the form and meaning of Subjunctive Mood as well as stimulate learner autonomy and interest, eventually, enhancing the teachingof Subjunctive Mood.The present study adopts both qualitative and quantitative research methods,conducting an empirical study in Ba Zhong Middle school for two months. Theparticipants involved in the present study are eighty senior high school students intheir second year, with half of them composing the Experimental Group (EG) and therest composing the Control Group (CG). Both EG and CG are instructed by the sameteacher, and EG participate in Transcription Task during the teaching processwhereas CG remain intact. EG receive an opinion survey both before and after theexperiment by means of questionnaire and interview. In addition, a post-test paper isdesigned and delivered to both groups. Then, a delayed post-test paper five weekslater is for the EG. The results of the tests are then analyzed by SPSS software andtwo conclusions have been drawn:(1) Transcription Task can motivate Chinese senior high school students inlearning Subjunctive Mood so as to improve the acquisition of Subjunctive Mood.(2) Transcription Task can significantly enhance the acquisition of SubjunctiveMood for Chinese senior high school students from EG when compared with CG.At the end of this study, the limitations of the current study and suggestions forthe future research are pointed out.