An Action Research Of Peer-assistance-based English Grammar Instruction In Senior High Schools

English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School Education advocates students “to explore,to practice actively” and “to develop independence,cooperation and initiative”(2003).However,English grammar as an indispensable part in foreign language learning in senior high school is not so satisfying.Two major problems are in the way.On one hand,teachers still give lectures in a traditional way and students listen attentively,which ignores the exploration and interaction of students.This teacher-centered teaching mode is far from principles of English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School Education.On the other hand,to cope with the drawbacks of the traditional grammar teaching,Communicative Language Teaching is highly recommended.However,in actual teaching,the concept of it is misread and authentic and meaningful communication is achieved at the cost of accuracy at times.Therefore,the quality of grammar teaching based on Communicative Language Teaching in senior high school needs improving.Faced with the present problems,an action research of Peer-Assistance-Based English grammar teaching has been designed to investigate its effectiveness in students’ affection and abilities in grammar use and whether it can provide a possibly effective grammar teaching framework for future teaching practice.Thus,this research attempts to answer the following questions with two rounds of action research in nineteen weeks:(1)What are the effects of Peer-Assisted Learning on senior high school students’ affection for grammar learning?(2)Can Peer-Assisted Learning improve senior high school students’ abilities in grammar use?134 senior three students in Jiang Men participated in the study and questionnaires,tests,interviews and logs were adopted.There are three steps in the research.Pre-study activities in the first 2 weeks were conducted to identify the problems.And then the first round in 3 to 9 weeks went on according to plan and the second round in 10 to 19 weeks was to implement the revised plan based on the previous one and evaluate the terminal results.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted to collect the information needed and analyze throughout the whole process.The results of the post questionnaire show that 58.8% of the students are fond of English grammar which is 29.2% higher than that before the action research.Also,the willingness of cooperation with peers increase from 17.8% to 43.37%.71.97% of the students are willing to give help to their peers in class,17.75% higher than before.Besides,based on the results from interviews and logs,the first question can be answered that application of PAL in English grammar class in senior high school has positive effect on their affection for grammar learning.What’s more,the results of rational cloze,error correction and writing indicating students’ abilities of grammar use both in class 21 and 22 are significantly higher than those of pre-test.That is,students’ ability of grammar use improves significantly than before,which is also the answer to the second question.It is with the PAL approach to grammar learning that students enhanced the abilities in grammar use significantly because they internalize the grammatical rules and language use by means of interaction and negotiation with their partners.In a word,this Peer-Assistance-Based English grammar research testifies the positive effect on grammar instruction and also provides a chance for the author to solve the present grammar teaching problems in her teaching and improve her professional development after it.At the same time,the findings of the research will be a supplement to the grammar teaching in senior school and give suggestions and implication to English teachers for the future grammar teaching in senior high schools.