An Analysis Of Grammar Content Design In New Senior English For China

The Communicative Language Teaching theory is a leap of the world languageteaching theory development in the20thcentury. It proposes the new concept“communicative competence” which is widely recognized and accepted by foreignlanguage teaching circle around the world. And also because it coincides with the goalof the New Curriculum Standard of our country that English language teaching shouldcultivate learners’ comprehensive language application ability. Many scholars, athome or abroad, have done a lot of researches on its applications to classroomteaching. Many of these researches have affected the textbook design deeply. Andtextbooks that apply Communicative Language Teaching principles which emphasizethe use of authentic language materials and interactive practice to cultivate students’language ability were published with high orders in our country. Thus this thesis triesto analysis how our textbooks reflect the Communicative Language Teaching theoryin order to promote teachers’ full understanding of the textbook design and improvethe teaching quality greatly.As the grammar content embodies the teaching important and difficult pointsmore than any other content, and the grammar competence is the base ofcommunicative competence. This thesis tries to use textbook analysis method andquestionnaire method to explore the grammar content design in the textbooks of NewSenior English for China based on the Communicative Language Teachingperspective. Then the features of the design are discussed in detail.After analysis, the paper draws the conclusion: the textbooks reflect the deductiveapproach to a certain degree; the language materials that are chosen cover variousaspect of social life and relate to the students’ real life closely; the arrangement of thegrammar content in accordance with students’ learning pattern, follows the principleof gradual and orderly progress, and combines structures with functions and topics toimprove students’ language application ability; when to present grammar, thetextbooks provide the opportunities for students to experience English, and try toequip learners with both grammar awareness and learning strategies through some conscious-raising grammar presentation activities; for the type of grammar practiceactivities, compared with mechanical practice, the textbooks supply more meaningfulpractice and communicative practice to arose learners’ learning interest and enhancelearners’ classroom participation; as for the design of “three-dimensional grammar”,the textbooks focus more on the pragmatic use of grammar to develop learners’abilityof using language rather than grasping static grammatical knowledge, and lay solidcondition for learners’English communicative competence.All in all, the results of the analysis suggest that the design of grammar content ofthe New Senior English for China has reflected the teaching principle ofCommunicative Language Teaching. Subsequent to the findings, the weaknesses ofthe design in grammar content are also pointed out in order to give suggestions forteachers to use the textbooks creatively and to make the classroom teaching better.When to use the textbooks, teachers can adjust the teaching contents, such as deletion,supplement, replacement and adaptation; When to design the classroom teaching,teachers should create the learner-centered classroom atmosphere to promote students’all round development through optimized teaching method and well-designedactivities.At last, the limitations of this research are presented and further improvement isalso suggested.