| The present study tries to compare the effects of deductive and inductive approaches on learning the simple past tense for primary school students.Theoretically,this study helps make up and enrich the studies on English tense teaching in the primary school.Practically,it helps primary school teachers choose a proper method between the deductive approach and the inductive approach in English tense teaching.This study is focused on solving the following questions.(1)What effects do the deductive approach and the inductive approach have on primary school students’ learning of simple past tense?(2)What effects do the deductive approach and the inductive approach have on primary school students’ retention of simple past tense?To answer the questions above,the author selected two classes from Grade 6 of a primary school as the research participants.The two classes were taught in the deductive approach and the inductive approach respectively.After the experimental lessons,tests and interviews were applied.The immediate tests on the receptive knowledge and the productive knowledge were conducted in these two classes to figure out the effects of the two approaches on primary school students’ learning of simple past tense.After that,the author interviewed five students who were randomly chosen from each class to get their opinions on the lessons they had recently.A week later,the delayed tests were conducted to figure out the effects of the two approaches on primary school students’ retention of simple past tense.Some major findings are figured out in the study.Firstly,in terms of learning,the deductive approach is more effective on the receptive knowledge and the productive knowledge of the simple past tense,and that is because the students can obtain rules more easily and clearly from the teacher’s direct explanation in the deductive approach.Secondly,in terms of retention,the deductive approach is more effective for primary students in mastering the receptive knowledge of the simple past tense,whereas on the productive knowledge,both of the two approaches have similar effects.The first impression of the target rules that the students obtain in the deductive approach is clearer and more direct.As a result,they can still recognize the rules in the delayed test.In this sense,the deductive approach can help students retain the receptive knowledge better.As to the productive knowledge of the simple past tense,on the one hand,the students who generate the rules successfully in the inductive group can know the rules more thoroughly and they can retain longer when producing knowledge,but on the other hand the deductive group have laid a good foundation in the short-term results,thus achieving similar final effects on the productive knowledge as the inductive approach.Generally speaking,it is better for primary school teachers to adopt the deductive approach to have English tense teaching.But for the high-level students,the inductive approach is more suitable.Besides,when the grammar rule is not too complicated,it’s also better to adopt the inductive approach.Hence,the selection of the approach depends on the concrete situation of the class. |
