A Study On The Application Of Schema Teaching Approach In English Grammar Instruction In Junior High School

English grammar is an indispensable part of English learning.Meanwhile,it is an important and difficult part in English instruction in middle and high schools.Many teachers still adopt the traditional grammar-translation teaching approach in English grammar teaching.That is,grammar teaching usually begins with the teachers' explanation of the grammar rules and then followed by asking students to do a large amount of exercises.Under this kind of teaching mode,many students just passively receive knowledge and then mechanically memorize it.They gradually lose interest in grammar learning and have a weak foundation of grammar knowledge.Thus,in the study the author attempts to apply schema teaching approach to English grammar instruction in junior high school.The schema approach might be helpful for students to sort out the old and new grammar knowledge,construct and then consolidate grammar schemata.With the schema approach,the junior students' grammar learning would in time get more organized and systematic.On the basis of Piaget's theory of learning,Bruner's cognitive-structure learning theory,as well as Ausubel's meaningful learning theory,in this study the author applied schema teaching approach to English grammar instruction in junior high school.The experiment revolved around three basic research questions.(1)What effects will schema teaching approach have on improving the students' interest and learning strategies in English grammar?(2)What effects will schema teaching approach have on junior students' grades in English grammar?(3)Compared with traditional grammar-translation approach,what are the advantages of schema teaching approach?The experiment was conducted in two parallel classes that are from Grade Eight in a certain junior high school in Anshan,Liaoning province.It lasted about one semester.In the course of the experiment,the author adopted the schema teaching approach in the experimental class,which mainly follows three steps: stimulating the old grammar schemata,constructing and then consolidating the new grammar schemata.Meanwhile,the traditional grammar-translation teaching approach was adopted in the control class.In addition,three research instruments were used in the study,including tests,questionnaires and interviews.Besides,the software SPSS 23.0 was used to analyze the quantitative data obtained from the experiment.Through analyzing the collected data,the research findings can be concluded as follows.First,schema teaching approach does have a positive effect on improving the students' interest and learning strategies in English grammar.Many students would be willing to spend more time on grammar learning,and they consciously connect the old and new knowledge in the process of grammar learning to form the systematic grammar schemata.Second,from the results of the data analyses of the pre-test and post-test,it is clear that after the experiment,the improvement of the experimental class in post-test is higher than that of the control class.It means schema teaching approach has a more obvious effect than traditional grammar-translation approach on improving the students' grammar grades.Third,after the experiment,many students have realized the advantages of schema approach.Schema serves as a bridge to connect the previous grammar knowledge with the new grammar points to be learned.The schema approach is helpful for students to sort out the old and new grammar knowledge,construct and then consolidate grammar schemata.With the schema approach,the junior students' grammar learning would in time get more organized and systematic.However,there are some inevitable limitations in this study.Hence the author has put forward some suggestions for future researchers towards the end of the thesis.