Applying The Authenticity Principle To English Grammar Teaching To Chinese Senior-High School Students

With further development of Communicative Language Teaching Approach, the authenticity teaching principle has taken an important role in English teaching. Authenticity teaching principle is also one of the hottest issues which are discussed by many authorities in foreign language teaching field all the time. Authenticity is not abstract or absolute. In contrast, it is specific that covers many different aspects. Therefore, as to the concept of the authenticity, many researchers hold different point of views and can not reach a consensus. In this thesis authenticity teaching principle sets up based on the analysis of students’need and is discussed from these four aspects:authenticity of texts, authenticity of task, authenticity of learning and authenticity of teacher.In language teaching area, different researchers do the research from different aspects and make some achievements, such as the research of English materials’ authenticity, communicative classroom’s authenticity, language test’s authenticity and task’s authenticity. However, the research according to the application of authenticity teaching principle into senior high school grammar teaching is still very few. Under the guidance of the previous studies on authenticity, this paper endeavors to examine the application of authenticity in grammar teaching with an empirical study.The research questions are as follows:1. Compared with the Grammar-Translation teaching method, what advantages does the authenticity teaching principle have in English grammar teaching? Whether it is more effective than the Grammar-translation type?2. How can the authenticity teaching principle stimulate the students’interest and learning strategies?3. How to make the authenticity teaching principle maximize its advantages?This thesis is mainly based on class experiment combing questionnaires, class observations and language tests. The whole experiment is under the instruction of Van Lier’s authenticity principle theory.66students are chosen to take part in the experiment and are divided into two classes. One is with32students is randomly chosen as the Experimental Class which receives the grammar teaching with authenticity teaching method, while the other with34students as Control class which receives the traditional grammar translation teaching method. The experiment lasts the whole semester. After the experiment, students’questionnaires are handed out to survey the students’ feeling of authenticity teaching principle. Data taken from the pre-test and post-test and questionnaires have been analyzed. At the end of the thesis, inspiration and suggestions are given.The findings of this thesis indicates that the authenticity teaching principle is more effective than traditional grammar-translation teaching method in grammar teaching in senior high English class and it can stimulate the students’ learning interest. However, many factors get in the way of its application.The significance of this thesis is to get enlightenment on the English teaching development. And it can meet the needs of students, arouse the students’ learning motivation and learning enthusiasm. As the survey shows most of the students think authentic teaching principle method help them improve the sense of responsibility and independence.The results of experiments are analyzed in details and based on it, some methods and suggestions which improve the grammar teaching in senior high school are given. In addition to the findings, this research still has some limitations. And implications are the research subjects and time limited. Many issues should be further researched in the area of authenticity principle.