Font Size: a A A

Application Of CLT In English Grammar Teaching In Senior High School

Posted on:2015-05-23Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q Q LiuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2297330461486722Subject:Subject teaching
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Nowadays, with the development of the society and the foreign language teaching system, the demand for the practical and communicative teaching goals have become more emergent. However, due to the domestic traditional education philosophy, the aims of the English teaching in senior middle schools are mainly related to high academic scores, and the teachers will spent most of their time in teaching the language knowledge instead of the application ability education, which makes the contradiction about the relationship between the language and it communicative functions more and more fierce. The author thinks that the teaching process should emphasize the equal and free communications between the teachers and the students, both of them are in charge of the teaching effectiveness and try their best to achieve the teaching goals. Especially in the process of the English grammar teaching, the interactivity between the teachers and the students are even more important due to the complexity and the objectivity of the grammar. Both of them need to realize that the goal of learning grammar is to make the communication more accurate to achieve the communication goals rather than grammar itself. But in fact, in the domestic teaching classes, a number of teachers still teach the English grammar at a micro level and explain the grammar rules in the simple sentences instead of the communicative needs, which makes the grammar teaching a boring and complicated lecture and the students lose the learning curiosities and can not achieve the teaching goals. Especially in recent years, the subjects to test the students’ comprehensive application ability have increased in the English domestic college entrance examination, which makes many teachers believe that the grammar has lost its importance in the NMET and don’t work out ways to innovate the teaching methods. There is no doubt that this misunderstanding does not meet the teaching objectives. The scholars from home and abroad have already reached a consensus that the grammar reflects the rules and essence of a language and it is also a tool to achieve the communicative goals. In the NMET, the grammar in the reading comprehension and written expression has become more complicated and difficult, so it is necessary for the students to master the grammar rules and make the right decisions. That is to say, the importance of the grammar in the NMET has increased instead of decreasing.So from the above analysis, we can see that the grammar teaching in the senior middle school has a higher curriculum standard in the new situation, it is not enough for the students to simply accept the pure grammar knowledge. The emergence of the "communicative competence" has offered us a new way to innovate our teaching method. After the systematic research of the scholars like Hymes (1972)、Brumfit & Johnson (1979)、Savignon (1983)、Yalden (1983), the "communicative language teaching"(CLT) has become popular all over the world. Through applying this method in the grammar teaching of the senior middle schools, the students can reconstruct their cognitive structure and increase their understanding and application abilities of the grammar, the teachers can also transfer the grammar knowledge as well as educating the students’ communicative competences to ensure the optimized communication effectiveness.The first chapter has mainly consisted of the following parts:(1) the theories of the CLT. The first theory is about the situational teaching approach, the CLT origins from the communicative theory put forward by Hymes, afterwards, the Halliday, Widdowson、Wilkins、Canale have developed the theory and believe that the communication process is the combination of grammar knowledge, social situation, moral actions and some other factors, which needs the teachers to teach grammar in the specific situations and lead the students to practice based on the communicative goals; the second theory is about the task approach, the scholars like Skehan、Hunan、Yalden、Richards have emphasized that the English teaching process should be task-oriented, the teachers give students the specific tasks and the students discuss and present the solutions, which can increase the communication accuracy through applying the grammar correctly. The task approach is also suggested in the National Standard for Compulsory Senior English Curriculum, it says that,"the teachers need to avoid the simple teaching approach and apply the task approach". So we can see that this theory has also provided us a new way to develop our grammar teaching.(2) the origin of the CLT. The CLT has originated from the European Economic Community at the end of the 1960s. after its establishment, the language misunderstanding in the different countries has become a serious problem and the scholars have began to think out the new ways to solve it. The communicative competence concept has been put forward by Hymes in 1972, he thinks that the language is a communicative tool, so the teaching process not only contains the language structure, but also the communication ability. Afterwards, the scholars like Firth、Halliday、John Gumper have accepted this opinion and developed the concept. In the<communicative language teaching> book written by Widdowson in 1978 and the <the communication in the class>book written by Johnson&Morrow in 1981, the scholars have explained the specific CLT methods and given the teachers references, soon the method emerged and become popular in the world.(3) the development of the CLT. In the traditional teaching methods, the schools focus on the grammar rules and structure, which can help the students analyze the sentences but can not communicate with the native speakers properly, so from the late 1980s, the CLT has been introduced into the domestic classes, and the schools has applied the method and aroused the interests of the students in some degree. But due to the limit of the traditional teaching objectives, the simple sentence explanation has still make up most of the class time, the flexibility and effectiveness in the domestic English classes have still needed the further confirmation.(4) the characteristics of the CLT. The most obvious characteristics of the CLT is that it has combined the language structure and functions together to achieve the communicative goals. So the grammar teaching in the senior middle schools should firstly emphasize the effective transformation of the messages to make sure what you have said understood by others and also you can understand what others said; secondly it is students-oriented and the students should be the core of the class and the teachers need to inspire the students to involve in the class activities; thirdly, the teachers have played an assistant role and given the students help to solve the communicative problems; fourthly, the CLT focuses on the task and the students can improve their communication ability through discussing, presenting the solutions; fifthly, the learning materials are diverse. The pictures, stories, songs, videos, debate, role play, speech, etc can all be involved in the class activities and the diverse materials can arouse the students’ interests and deeper understand the grammar knowledge.The second chapter has mainly consisted of the following parts:(1) the place of the grammar teaching. The grammar rules and structure have always been the important parts in the traditional English teaching. Firstly, from the aspect of learning situation, to learn the native language is quite different from the foreign language. The native speaker can express their ideas whenever and wherever possible, but the foreign language learner has to master the complicated grammar to express his ideas more accurately; secondly, from the aspect of learning goals, the solid grammar basis can improve the learners’ understanding ability, especially in the NMET, the reading comprehension has been an important part, so the grammar learning will help the students to deeper understand the contents and make the right decisions; thirly, from the aspect of learning functions, grammar reflects the rules and essence of the language, so to learn the grammar is to learn the core of the language, which is a shortcut to master a language. Based on the grammar, the learners can further learn the words, sentences and the passages.(2) the views about the grammar teaching. Firstly, the views against the grammar teaching. Since the 1980s, many scholars have believed that teaching the grammar instead of teaching the learning abilities in the senior middle school is the main reason which leads to unsatisfactory performances of the students’learning ability. So since 1993, the textbook of the senior middle schools has changed the arrangement based on the grammar theory into the arrangement based on the communicative activities. The scholars at that time think that communication is the main teaching goal that the grammar teaching should be dismissed gradually. This opinion has led to the inaccuracy of the English speaking when the students communicate with others; secondly,the views for the grammar teaching. The scholars think that English is a foreign language that it must be mastered from the systematic learning. So in the national curriculum standard, the grammar teaching has come back again. The new curriculum encourage the students to communicate accurately and properly, more and more teachers have began to realize that the students in senior middle school are able to master the complicated grammar system and it is also of high use to learn the grammar well.(3) the importance of the grammar teaching in senior middle schools. Firstly, from the aspect of the importance of the grammar, it is the core of a language that the learners can communicate more accurately through learning the grammar; secondly, from the traditional grammar teaching methods, there are grammar translation method, direct teaching method, the listening and speaking method and the cognition teaching method, they all have given some suggestions about the grammar teaching and have a deep influence on the following years’ research; thirdly, from the aspect of the problems in the traditional grammar teaching method, there are four problems still need our attention. The first one is that many teachers still don’t pay enough attention to the grammar teaching. Under the guidance of the new curriculum standard, many teachers have turned to innovate the teaching method and the classroom atmosphere has been more active than before, but which squeezes the grammar teaching time and many students are still unfamiliar with the rules, the second one is that the teaching method is simple. It is required in the national curriculum that the teaching methods should involve many ways, such as the experience, observation, discussion, exploration, etc. but in the real classroom, many teachers are still standing on the platform and the students are listening and taking notes. This simple method can not get the feedback and decreases the teaching effectiveness. The third one is that the teaching method is rigid. In the traditional method, the teachers will explain the rigid sentences to the students and ask them to make up the new sentences, which leads to the stereotype and low efficiency of the English learning. The fourth one is that the teaching testing is one-sided. In the current teaching testing, most of the teachers will test the students’ writing and reading abilities and thus the students will make exercises from these parts, the grammar testing is relatively fewer so the students will ignore the grammar learning. This test-oriented learning method will affect the students’ learning interests.The grammar teaching method based on the CLT, which has been put forward by Brumfit, Harmer, Byrne, Dave Willis & Jane Willis respectively. Both of them emphasize the importance of the grammar teaching based on the CLT and the process includes the introduction, exercise, discussion, presentation, communication, etc, but the specific sequence is diverse.The summary of the grammar teaching methods based on the CLT. The different methods have all focused on the structure and function of the language learning. They require the teachers to combine the communicative approach and grammar learning together, which can not only increase the understanding and application abilities of the students, but also can improve their communication competences, which is beneficial to the English learning.The third chapter has mainly consisted of the following parts:(1) the CLT syllabus and the teaching syllabus in senior middle schools. The aim of the CLT syllabus is to improve the learners’ communicative competences, so the textbook must suits the social needs and give the real the situations for the learners to practice. While the domestic English teaching syllabus after the reform of the open and reform policy has also emphasized the significance of learning the systematic grammar rules to improve their communication accuracy and fluency. So under this guidance, when the teachers begin to teach the grammar, they will first think about what situations the students may meet and how to express their ideas. This teaching philosophy has broken the traditional teaching limits and combined the language form, language meaning and language function together, which is consistent with the syllabus of the CLT.(2) the characteristics of the new curriculum standard in senior middle schools. First, it requires the teaching process must be open to all the students and can arouse their learning interests to the most degree. Second, it emphasizes the overall designing of the teaching system and the flexibility of the teaching methods. The teaching goals are consistent with the students’ ability in different grades, which will assure the integration of the teaching system; third, it respects the personality of the students, which requires the teachers to offer the specific guidance according to the students’ personality and ability to assure that every student is able to benefit from the new English teaching method; fourth, it suggests the experiencing teaching method and guide the students to solve the real problems by themselves, which can improve their learning attitude and comprehensive language ability. Fifth, it focuses on the process feedback to make sure the teaching effectiveness in different teaching stage; sixth, it requires the teachers to extend the teaching materials, such as the pictures, videos, books or websites to improve their communication abilities.The fourth chapter has mainly consisted of the following parts:(1) the research purpose, including testing the feasibility and effectiveness of the CLT in grammar teaching in senior middle schools.(2) the research methods, including the language test, questionnaire survey and the statistical analysis through comparisons.(3) the research subject, the 90 grade 2 students from RenShou city, who have been divided into the experimental class and the control class. In the 12 weeks, they have been compared based on the CLT and the traditional teaching method in aspect of the subjunctive and nonfinite verb learning.(4) the research process. First, In the CLT design, the teachers will offer the students pictures, videos, stories, poems, dialogues, debate, competition, performance, role play, etc to explain the grammar rules and make the students to practice them; second, in the teaching arrangement during the 12 weeks, the test and questionnaire survey before the research have been done in the first week, and from the week 2 to week 7, the experimental class and the control class have been taught in CLT way and in traditional way respectively, and in the week 8, the test and questionnaire survey after the research have been done; and from week 9 to week 12, the author has given the statistical analysis and conducted the conclusions; third, the data collection, the test scores before the research are based on the scores in 2012-2013 2nd term final examination, the scores after the research are gotten from the 12-week experiments; fourth, the data statistical analysis. First, Before the research, the scores in the 2012-20132nd term have been tested in the way of Kirkland test to assure the English ability indifference between the two classes; second, to make sure the indifference between the two classes in the performance of subjunctive and nonfinite verb, the author has also tested the students and analyzed in the way of Kirkland test; third, to test the different effectiveness between the CLT and the traditional methods, the author has also tested the students and analyzed in the way of Kirkland test. the results have shown that the scores in experimental class are higher than those in the control class, so it is feasible and effective to apply the CLT in the grammar teaching in the domestic senior middle schools.(5) the results analysis of the questionnaire survey. Through the questionnaire survey before and after the test, the result has shown that most of the students don’t have much interests in the grammar learning and regard it as a boring knowledge before the test, but after the CLT application,66% of the students in the experimental class have been satisfied with the teaching method and are more likely to involve in the class activities, while in the control class, the percentage is far lower.The fifth chapter has mainly consisted of the following parts:(1) the research conclusion. Through the research, the author has believed that the CLT application in the domestic senior middle classes is feasible that the students can get in touch with more vivid teaching materials and more involve in the class activities, which is of great use to their communication ability. Besides, through the questionnaire survey and tests, the author has found that the students are more likely to accept the CLT and are able to get higher scores, so it is effective in the grammar teaching in the senior middle schools.(2) the teaching suggestions. In the future teaching process, the teachers should first combine the grammar teaching with the passage understanding to transform the grammar knowledge into the grammar activity, second, the grammar teaching should be combined with the skills education, which can improve the students’communicative abilities through listening, speaking, reading and writing exercises; third, the grammar teaching should be combined with the native language comparison to impress the students and encourage them to communicate with others more accurately; fourthly, the grammar teaching should be combined with the communicative feedback. The teachers can innovate the feedback methods to test the students’communication competences, which is beneficial for them to master a language more quickly.(3) the research outlook. Due to the time limits, the author has just taken the 90 students in RenShou city as examples and researched the subjunctive and nonfinite verb to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the CLT application in domestic senior middle schools. In the future research, the researchers can extend the time, subjects and contents to further test the conclusions in this paper.
Keywords/Search Tags:communicative competence, Communicative Language Teaching, Grammar class in senior middle school, Grammar teaching
PDF Full Text Request
Related items