| In light with English New Curriculum Reform, language teachers are faced withnew challenges; Instead of the traditional ways of grammar teaching, English teachersshould apply a new teaching policy in knowledge instruction, which emphases more ontraining and cultivating students’ autonomous learning and language cognitive abilities.To help the teachers, especially those in the rural areas to better adapt to the principlesin the English New Curriculum and increase their professional development, NationalTraining Program as the symbol of professional coursework is conducted. As how toteach grammar is an unavoidable issue in the discussion of how to teach a languageeffectively, to probe the present situation of English teaching and help teachers cultivateproper teaching cognitions especially through professional coursework, it is verynecessary to study the present grammar teaching situation of teachers. The present studyfrom the viewpoint of grammar teaching is aimed to find out what do teachers receivingNational Teachers’ Training Program have cognition about grammar and grammarteaching and did a survey about the cognitive situation of grammar and grammarpedagogy held by the junior middle school English teachers who have attended theNational Teacher Training Program. On the basis of teacher cognition researchespecially those for English grammar pedagogy,3research questions were proposed1)what are the characteristics of the cognitions about grammar and grammar pedagogy ofthose Junior high school English teachers receiving National Training Program?2)What are the influencing factors of teacher background which have impact on teachers’particular cognitions about grammar teaching?3) What are the relationships betweenteachers’ cognition about grammar teaching and their pedagogical practice? In order to find answers to these research questions,60teachers who have attendedthe National Training Program of Sichuan Normal University in2012and2013weresurveyed. After the survey through the instrument of two questionnaires: The Teachers’Grammar Teaching Cognitions Questionnaire, which was adapted from Andrew (2003)and Burgess and Etherington (2002) and The Teachers’ Grammar Pedagogical PracticeQuestionnaire (Gao,2007), quantitative data were computed into SPSS19.0.. Added tothe qualitative questions in the two questionnaires, e-mail interviews towards8representative teachers were conducted. Furthermore, a case study has been done to findout more detailed information.Through the analysis of the results above,5major findings are got:1) there areinterconnected cognition networks where some specific perceptions are central in thecognitions about grammar and grammar teaching of those subject teachers. They attachmuch importance to grammar in language teaching while favoring a morecommunicative way of grammar teaching and also kept a traditional ways of teaching.2)Some factors like working contexts, teachers’ English level, times they received traininghave some impacts on teachers’ particular cognitions about grammar teaching.3) Thesources contribute to teachers’ cognitions about grammar and grammar teaching aremainly their own teaching experience as well as observations of other teachers’ class,teachers’ training, and self-study from articles about English teaching, while teachingand researching activities and the experience they learnt English are also mentioned bysome teachers.4) Teachers’ cognitions and pedagogical practice are almost closelycorrelated with each other and tensions between them also exist.5) The reasons causingthe tensions between teachers’ cognitions and pedagogical practice are students’ poorEnglish competence, the stress of exams and teaching tasks as well as teachers’ abilityof class designing et al.According to the5major findings, implications from teachers’ professionalcoursework, teachers’ professional development, and middle school English languagepedagogy in China in light of the new curriculum standard were found. Also, thelimitations and suggestions were mentioned there. |
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