A Study On The Application Of Situational Teaching Approach To Teaching English Subjunctive Conditionals In Senior High School

The Situational Teaching Approach requires teachers to create a real or nearly an authentic language environment according to the teaching contents to enable students to participate in teaching activities actively. At present, the empirical study on the Situational Teaching Approach in senior high English classroom is not much. Therefore, the study attempts to do a research on applying Situational Teaching Approach to English grammar teaching in senior high schools, and select the subjunctive conditional as specific research project.The English subjunctive mood expresses speakers’ wishes, suggestions, and suppositions. It is a key point among grammarians, and is of significance in English language teaching. In view of the differences between Chinese and English, and the complexity of the subjunctive mood, how to understand and master subjunctive mood remains a barrier to Chinese learners in English grammar learning and in all kinds of examinations; and how to effectively teach subjunctive mood is also a great challenge to English teachers.This study attempts to apply Situational Teaching Approach to the subjunctive conditional teaching in class of senior two students. The study lasts for 4 weeks, adopting contrast groups. It aims to explore the following questions: “Can situational teaching approach alter students’ attitude towards grammar learning?” “Is the situational teaching approach more effective in understanding of the subjunctive conditional than the traditional memorization of grammar rules?” and “Is the acquisition of subjunctive conditional more durable by the situational teaching approach than by traditional teaching method?”The results of questionnaires indicate that after the same period of teaching, the experimental class(EC) learns English grammar with more positive attitude than before. The data analysis of posttest and delayed test in EC proves that the application of Situational Teaching Approach reinforces students’ impression on subjunctive conditional knowledge points, making the acquisition of subjunctive conditional more durable. The posttest results of EC and CC(control class) show that students’ achievement in EC is improved a lot. These finding are expected to broaden the way of grammar teaching and offer more practical reference.