Application Of Inquiry Learning In English Grammar Teaching In Vocational Schools

English is the language used widely in the world nowadays. It is one of the most important subjects in school education in China; vocational high schools are no exception. If English learning is compared to building a house, the word is a brick, that grammar is equivalent to the cement, which is used to connect and reinforce brick materials. English cannot be called true English without grammar. English teaching is not really the teaching of English without grammar teaching. For many years, the model of grammar teaching has been the teacher-centered model in China, in which students have to follow what teachers teach. They cannot fully share their own responsibility and dig up their own potentiality in the process of language learning, which affects the quality of language teaching. Even in the21st century, the model of English teaching remains the same as it was ten years ago in some English classes, especially in vocational school. The result is that students have learnt five or six years of English, but they cannot use English properly and correctly while talking with others. How to teach English grammar effectively and how to help students to use English appropriately in the process of communication with others has been besetting the majority of the English teachers both in ordinary high school and vocational school.With the thorough and clear understanding of the importance of grammar in English teaching and being aware of the English grammar teaching problems in the vocational school English teaching, it is necessary to change the traditional teaching philosophy and probe the effective teaching approach. However, inquiry learning is a mode that the students do the independent self-study and cooperate and discuss with their peers under the teacher’s guidance. The content of teaching is the content of inquiry. It offers the students opportunities to detect, inquire and discuss the questions. The students can put the knowledge they have learned into practice through individual and group activities. Its theoretical basis dates back to1909. Dewey, a famous American philosopher and educator thought that education was not only a method that can have the students learn much knowledge, but also a method that have the learners learn the efficient inquiry method. It turned out to be a reasonable learning method since the1950s. And it has been used and disseminated widely in the world. In order to testify the effectiveness and practicality of the inquiry learning in the process of vocational English teaching, the author of this paper intends to carry out a classroom experiment in her own classroom English teaching.Classes3and4, altogether seventy-four students, from HanDan No.2Vocational Middle School were chosen as the research subjects. They were all in Grade One. There were38students in Class Three and36in Class Four. Class Three was the Experimental Class who were taught by using inquiry learning method and Class Four was the Control Class taught in the traditional grammar-translation method by the author of this paper. The two classes were organized at random. The experiment began on February7,2012and ended on July5,2012. It lasted22weeks (a semester). During the experiment, the subjects were divided into groups of four or five in order to offer each student chances to practice. At the beginning of the experiment, there was a pre-questionnaire and a pre-test. At the end of the experiment, there was a post-questionnaire and a post-test. The results of the questionnaire and tests show clearly the changes between the students in experiment class and control class. After one semester’s experiment, the students in the experiment class performed much better in English grammar learning than those in the control class, and their scores were much higher, too. What is more, the students in the experimental class can speak and write with more grammatical sentences than before and also than those in the control class. It can be concluded that the inquiry learning is more effective in grammar learning in vocational schools through students’cooperation and active participation in their own learning activities.This research has verified the effectiveness and the feasibility of the application of inquiry learning in English grammar teaching in vocational schools both theoretically and practically. Through analyzing the features of inquiry learning, exploring the roles the teacher and students play in inquiry learning with examples and demonstrations, the conclusion can be drawn that inquiry learning is one of the effective ways to teach English grammar as well as cultivation of the students’personal development in the new century.Though there existed some limitations in the process of the research, it is believed that it’s helpful and practical for teaching and learning English grammar in vocational schools, which paved the way for further research in this field. Above all, it is of great push for further teaching reform in vocational language teaching.