An Empirical Study Of Effects Of Context-based Teaching On English Tense In Middle School

English tense is an important part of English grammar. Having a good command of English tense will undoubtedly facilitate learners’competence and accuracy of language use. Nowadays, English tense teaching is influenced by the traditional English grammar teaching, that means, teachers always take a dominant role in class and present grammar rules in isolation. What students do is rote these rules and drill them mechanically. The traditional teaching overlooks the application of grammar rules in specific contexts, which results in the fact that students’recognition of communicative function of language is not enough. At the same time, due to the lack of English context in their minds, many Chinese students fall into the compensation of Chinese context, so they cannot properly and accurately express their thoughts in the real communication. With a view to solve this problem, it is significant for English teachers to try to get out of traditional teaching and find a better way to teach grammar, so that students can have the abilities to express themselves accurately, properly and fluently in communication.Looking at the previous studies on English tense teaching, there are many teaching methods are applied to English tense teaching, but all of them have their own limitations. Nowadays, linguists and foreign language teachers abroad and in China are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of context, and there have been quite a few researches on it, but few has done for empirical study, let alone applying it to English tense teaching. In view of this, with the support of context theory, this study discusses the development, advantages and principles of context-based teaching approach, and aims to testify:Does the context-based teaching of English tense show better effect than traditional teaching method.To be specific, the author carried out a teaching experiment, in which the teaching contents include the simple present tense, the simple past tense and the simple future tense. Two classes of Junior Grade One in Guangzhou Liuhua Middle School were chosen as the subjects. One class was randomly selected as the control class in which the traditional grammar teaching method continues to be used for English tense instruction, while the other was selected as the experimental class where context-based teaching approach is applied. The whole experiment had lasted for twelve months. Before and after the experiment, both classes had a pre-test and a post-test. All the data in the experiment were processed and analyzed by SPSS16.0. The final results were:independent-sample t test of pre-test shows that before the teaching treatment, both the experimental class and control class have no significant difference in the proficiency of English tense; to the scores of pre-test and post-test, paired-sample t test shows that both the experimental class and control class had made some progress after the experiment; and independent-sample t test of post-test proves that the experimental class made much progress than the control class.Combined with the results of this experiment, context-based teaching of English tense shows better effect than traditional teaching method. In light of the teaching activities implemented in this study and the above findings, some pedagogical implications can be drawn. Firstly, English tense teaching needs the support of context. Secondly, in the context-based teaching, the context in which grammar is embedded needs to be appropriate and useful to the needs and interests of the learners. In conclusion, context-based teaching approach is feasible and effective in English tense teaching. This study hopes not only to enrich context theory and teaching theory, but also can be used to improve English tense and English grammar teaching.