Research On The Effectiveness Of The PPT Model In Grammar Instruction Of Junior Middle School

Grammar knowledge, as a fundamental and critical component of the language, is viewed by numerous scholars as the promising guarantee for language’s correctness and higher levels of language competence. Grammar instruction can significantly contribute to the accuracy of language and effectively accelerate learners’ language development especially in China where English is learned as a foreign language and where learners are deprived of considerable amounts of natural and comprehensible language input. Therefore, it is both theoretically and practically reasonable to emphasize grammar knowledge in China’s foreign language classroom instruction. However, current foreign language teaching, especially the grammar instruction known for its consuming of time and low efficiency, fails to motivate and foster learners’ effective learning. Thus, it has increasingly become an obstacle for learners’ language development. Therefore, to conduct a research on grammar instruction and to search for an applicable grammar instruction model which can both motivate and contribute to learners’ effective learning of foreign language are extremely urgent and crucial in middle school.Generally, the study of grammar instruction model can be divided into two categories:one is the traditional PPP teaching model which extremely stresses on linguistic form, while the other one is task-based approach which totally emphasizes on the practice of communicative skills in classroom instruction. In other words, each of the two approaches enjoys some unique merits and disadvantages in the course of classroom grammar instruction. In view of this, on one hand, the author makes an endeavor to demonstrate the necessity and feasibility of the teaching model which can integrate the merits of PPP and task-based approach by a brief review of these two teaching models; on the other hand, based on the study of the poor language background of junior middle school learners, the author puts forward the PPT model where the communicative task is introduced in the last part of PPP model, attempting to increase both learners confidence and interest in language learning. Finally, the PPT model applied into the process of foreign language teaching in junior middle school, mainly aims to answer the following two research questions:1) Can the PPT model stimulate learners’grammar learning motivation?.2) Does the PPT model contribute more to grammar learning compared with the PPP and TBLT model?.To this end, a four-month teaching experiment has been launched by the author in Xiapu No.8 middle school in Fujian Province. During the experiment, three grammar instruction models:PPT, TBLT, PPP have been respectively applied into three paralleled classes of Grade Seven:Class3, Class4, Class5, with 90 subjects in total. The grammar test and questionnaire are used to ensure that there is no significant difference in learners’ grammar status before the experiment. Also, instruments like immediate test, delayed test, questionnaire are adopted to collect research data and analyze hypothesis. Finally, the data has been analyzed by the statistics analyzing instrument SPSS 17.0.The results indicate that the PPT model in which the communicative tasks are designed at the last stage of the PPP model has managed to foster effective grammar learning and increase learners’ learning motivation as well. On one hand, compared with task-based approach, the PPT model where the linguistic knowledge is explicitly learnt in the first two stages, can help get learners linguistically prepared for the communicative task and promote learners’ linguistic competence. On the other hand, compared with the PPP model, the PPT model where the communicative task is introduced in the last stage can be very beneficial to increasing learners’ grammar learning motivation and improving their communicative competence. In a word, with an attempt to balance the linguistic competence and communicative competence in classroom grammar instruction, this study proposes the PPT model which integrates the merits of PPP model and TBLT model, and provides some valuable references for future relevant theoretical study and pedagogical research.