The Influence Of Different Input Methods On Senior High School Grammar Instruction

For a long time， grammar-translation method dominates the grammar teaching in China.The method overly emphasizes rule transformation and the explicit explanation of rules at theexpense of learner’s grammar use and grammar perception in context. That is the reason forinconsistency in grammar competence and grammar knowledge, which hinders thedevelopment of learner’s communicative competence. With the development of teachingreform and Second Language Acquisition, teachers and researchers have consensus on thatteaching grammar form contributes to language acquisition. According to Achard’s theory, thecurrent problem in grammar teaching is not whether it should be taught or not, but how toteach. The hot debated topic centers on whether grammar should be instructed implicitly orexplicitly. Studies in Second Language Acquisition and Cognitive Psychology indicate thatcommunicative teaching focuses on the implicit teaching of grammar communicativefunctions through tasks. Though this method can develop language performance better, it cannot address the accuracy of grammar to full extent. Explicit teaching is better to impartsystematic grammar knowledge than implicit teaching, and the mixture of the two methodsproduces the best result. The question is how explicit teaching and implicit teaching can beintegrated in grammar teaching to develop learner’s grammar knowledge and grammarcompetence. This thesis analyzes the explicit and implicit grammar teaching by the explicit learningand implicit learning theory in the second language acquisition and cognitive psychology,tries to address the problem of grammar teaching in senior high school by a case study ofabsolute construction via implicit-explicit-implicit teaching and explicit-explicit-implicitteaching, and then discusses the teaching effect of different sequences on the high schoolstudents’ intake of complex and simple English grammar.The research question is how to integrate effectively the implicit and explicit grammarinstruction in order to facilitate the transformation from explicit grammar knowledge toimplicit grammar knowledge and improve learners’ grammar competence. The question isspecified into two in this experiment:1. Is implicit-explicit-implicit task teaching or explicit-explicit-implicit task teaching moreeffective in teaching absolute construction?2. Which teaching method is more effective to teach simple and complex absoluteconstruction rules?The study adopts an experimental design combined with observation and interview. Thesubjects were104second grade students from2intact classes. They were randomly assignedto2experimental groups for one month experiment of absolute construction teaching,20minutes every week. The experimental group received implicit-explicit-implicit task teaching,and the control group received explicit-explicit-implicit teaching. Data were collected fromthe paper tests of absolute construction before and after the experiment.The result of the experiment reveals that1) there is no significant difference in learningeffect between control group and experimental group, though the scores the experimentalgroup got is higher than the control group;2) experimental group performed better thancontrol group in using the simply absolute construction yet not significantly different andthere is no difference in learning complex absolute construction in two groups;3)experimental group were more active and prompt in producing structures of absoluteconstruction.The suggestions we can get through this research:1) recognizing the advantages ofimplicit and explicit learning in classroom learning;2) adjusting the proportion of implicitand explicit instruction according to the degrees of grammar complexity;3)designing various language tasks;4) developing students’ learning strategies.