Application Of PACE Teaching Mode To Comparatives And Superlatives In Junior High School English Teaching

As an important part of the language knowledge system,grammar holds an irreplaceable position in English teaching and learning.The author noticed that,compared with reading or writing teaching,most teachers’ grammar teaching modes are still traditional.They still use PPP（Presentation,Practice,Production）teaching mode in grammar classes.In this study,the author applied PACE（Presentation,Attention,Co-construction and Extension）teaching mode to junior high school English grammar teaching to explore its effectiveness.PACE teaching mode combines the methods of deduction and induction,and is a highly instructive communicative grammar teaching mode.The research object were two classes’ students from Grade Eight in a junior high school in Lian Yun Gang.The two classes were divided into the experiment class and the control class.The teacher adopted PACE teaching mode in the experiment class while adopted PPP teaching mode in the control class.The research methods were the combination of quantitative method and qualitative method.The author used test papers and questionnaires as the quantitative research tools,and the interview as the qualitative research tool.The tests were divided into pre-test and post-test.Ninety-two valid questionnaires were collected.Students with high,intermediate and low levels selected from the experiment class were interviewed and two students were in each grammar level group respectively.The basic teaching material was the English textbook published by Yilin Publishing House（the first volume for the eighth grade）.The comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs were selected as the grammatical points of the teaching experiment.There were three research questions:（1）Which teaching mode is more conducive to improving students’ grammar scores?PACE teaching mode or PPP teaching mode?（2）What effects does PACE teaching mode have on high-level,intermediate-level and low-level students?（3）What effects does PACE teaching mode have on junior high school students’ grammar learning strategies?Through independent sample T-test of EC and CC’s post-tests,paired sample T-test of EC and CC’s pre-test and post-test,and paired sample T-test of the grammar learning strategy questionnaires of EC,the following major findings can be presented:（1）PACE teaching mode can better improve students’ grammar scores when applied to junior high school English grammar teaching compared with the traditional PPP teaching mode.（2）PACE teaching mode had different teaching effects on students with different grammar levels.Students with intermediate grammar level made the most progress,students with high grammar level made the moderate progress,and students with low grammar level made the least progress.（3）PACE teaching mode had effects on students’ grammar learning strategies.Positive changes have taken place in students’ use of cognitive strategy,meta-cognitive strategy,resource management strategy,affective strategy and communicative strategy.The research has some pedagogical implications for English grammar teaching:The teacher should incorporate the receptive learning way and rote practicing methods into PACE teaching mode,consider the individual differences of students,provide guidance on how to make grammar learning plans and how to use grammar learning resources,choose proper language materials and especially use inspiring assessments among low level students.