A Study On The Application Of Consciousness-Raising Task To Grammar Instruction In Chinese Senior High Schools

Grammar instruction,just like the other aspects of language instruction,has changed significantly.The focus of grammar instruction has transformed from the grammar teaching tasks of teachers to the grammar learning and application tasks of learners.Furthermore,the focus of the relevant debate surrounding grammar instruction has also shifted from what grammar is to how to teach grammar better so as to make it easier for students to learn to use grammar more effectively.Against this backdrop the emergence of the grammar teaching method related to the consciousness-raising does conform to the trend of grammar teaching reform,of which the superiority has been verified by a number of scholars at home and abroad when it is compared with the traditional grammar teaching method as well as the purely communicative teaching method.So far,the majority of the relevant studies mainly compare the effectiveness or popularity of the grammar teaching method involving consciousness-raising with that of the traditional grammar teaching method or the purely communicative method.Nevertheless,as one of the specific application forms of consciousness-raising,the consciousness-raising task is well worthwhile being concerned and researched as well.However,currently,there are not so many domestic studies focusing on the consciousness-raising task,let alone the domestic empirical studies comparing theinductive consciousness-raising task with the deductive one.In the light of the deficiency existing in the current situation of English grammar instruction in Chinese senior high schools,based on the analysis of the current situation concerning the related studies at home and abroad,this paper carries out the comparative study centering on the inductive and deductive consciousness-raising tasks in the grammar instruction of senior high school by putting into practice a two-month teaching experiment,of which the teaching content focuses on the relevant grammatical knowledge of attributive clause.In order to make the results of the experiment more effective and scientific,the teaching experiment of the thesis is mainly conducted by means of pre-test,post-test and questionnaire.The author hopes that this research could to some extent help the application of the consciousness-raising task to grammar instruction in Chinese senior high schools gain more pertinence and directivity.The study aims to answer the following two questions: Above all,apropos of the traditional grammar teaching method and the grammar teaching method employing the consciousness-raising task,which one is more popular with students of Chinese senior high school? Incidentally,with respect to the deductive and inductive consciousness-raising tasks,which one works better on the English grammar instruction of Chinese high school in terms of both effectiveness and recognition of the students? This paper attaches more importance to the second question.The subjects of the experiment cited in this thesis are the students from two parallel classes,Class One Senior One and Class Two Senior One in Gong Lu Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Second Polytechnic University,and the traditional 3P teaching method used to be applied to teach grammar in these two classes.Before the experiment,the author carried out a pre-test surrounding the attributive clause in these two classes,of which the results indicated that the students from Class One Senior One performed generally as well as those from Class Two Senior One when they were confronted with problems about the attributive clause.During the experiment,the author respectively taught grammar in these two classes twice a week,taking the grammar knowledge related to the attributive clause as the center of the teachingcontent.Specifically speaking,the author utilized the inductive consciousness-raising task to teach target grammar rules of attributive clause in Class One Senior One,while making use of the deductive consciousness-raising task to teach the target grammar rules in Class Two Senior One.To reduce the interference derived from non-experimental independent variables to the accuracy of the experimental results as far as possible,the author took some necessary measures.Above all,the author kept the weekly teaching content and progress of the two parallel classes consistent with each other.Meanwhile,the weekly assignments and learning tasks the author distributed to these two classes were in accord with each other,and the content of these assignments as well as tasks didn't involve any knowledge points beyond the weekly teaching progress.In addition,all the students were carefully instructed not to learn the new knowledge about attributive clause on their own after class.After the experiment,the author held a post-test focusing on the attributive clause for the students from both of the two classes,at the same time,a questionnaire survey was conducted for them.The items of the questionnaire include two dimensions,namely,the students' attitudes towards the new grammar teaching method applying the consciousness-raising task,and their opinions on grammar learning after the experiment.Finally,with the help of the software,SPSS 22.0,the author managed to smoothly process and analyze the data collected from the results of pre-test,post-test and questionnaire.The following conclusions are drawn through the analysis of the results belonging to pre-test,post-test and questionnaire.Firstly,compared with the traditional teaching method used to teach English grammar,the new grammar teaching method adopting the consciousness-raising task is more popular with students of Chinese senior high school.Secondly,both two kinds of consciousness-raising tasks indeed have a part to play in the improvement of Chinese senior high school students' English grammatical grades,and the inductive consciousness-raising task works better than the deductive consciousness-raising task on the English grammar instruction of Chinese senior high school in terms of effectiveness.Thirdly,as far as recognition of the students is concerned,by contrastwith the deductive consciousness-raising task,the inductive consciousness-raising task works better on the English grammar instruction of Chinese senior high school.This thesis provides the instruction of English grammar in Chinese senior high schools with the following implications: To begin with,the presentation of the target grammar rules should be combined with appropriate context or samples,and these contexts and samples presented had better embody the element of information gap into the bargain.Next,the target grammar knowledge in a concrete consciousness-raising task should be targeted.What's more,grammar instruction had better be combined with communicative activities,besides,the teachers are supposed to reasonably design the communicative activities in the grammar instruction.Moreover,the accuracy of students' output in the consciousness-raising task should not be attached too much importance to,meanwhile,teachers are supposed to actively seek various approaches to promoting the enthusiasm of senior high school students participating in grammar classes.