Chapter OneSituational Language Teaching
1.1 Development of Situational Language Teaching
In 1990, influenced by the constructionism, Vanderbilt Cognitive and Technical Teamconducted a large-scale research in the different states of America and formed their ownteaching modal, which is “Anchored Instruction”. They held the opinion that, teachers shouldput the learning in a real as well as complicated leaning situation for the learners. Theteaching characteristics are listed below:The authenticity of teaching situation, which includes: authenticity of content, form andthe process of finding and solving problems.The richness of teacher’s role: teacher’s role should change form information providerto the coach and partner of the students. Feasibility of cooperative learning: one of the goals of Anchored Instruction is to createa cooperative learning environment, form a effective cooperation between learners. But forthe complexity of the environment and the learners’ ability to handle problems, therefore,cooperative learning is quite essential and necessary.The flexibility of teaching: because of the differences between each learner, theteaching objectives should meet different students’ needs.In China, at first, it was applied by a Chinese teacher, LiJilin, she has made anachievement on this teaching method by applying it to her Chinese classroom. In herstatement, the function of the Situation Teaching Approach is mainly manifested in twoaspects: cultivate and suggested (or inspiration) functions.At first, situational language teaching can cultivate people's emotions and purify theirsouls. Cultivate, in education psychology theory, means the ideology which provides a personwith good impact. About the cultivate function, early in the spring and autumn periodConfucius summed it up as "silent to teach" and "beauty" in the kernel. The cultivatefunctions of situational language teaching works as a filter, so it purifies and sublimateshuman’s emotion and eliminate the negative factors.
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1.2 Theoretical Grounds
Tao Xingzhi, a famous educator of China, put forward “the art for teaching is to arousestudents’ interest, once they have the interest, they will concentrate their full energies tolearning.” situational language teaching is based on some content, and the content are relatedto the vivid and humanistic life, thus teachers can inspire and stimulate learners to learn andparticipate, and achieve the best result finally. Its theoretical foundations are as follows. Psychology researches show that the new, active and clear stimuli can elicit anadrenalin rush of cerebral cortex, and form preponderant excitement. Comenius wrote clearlyin Great Didactic “all things are started with sense. If it is possible, things should be put infront of people’s sense organ: the things we can see should be put in front of our eyes, thethings we can hear should be put near our ears.” in this way, people can receive the imagesignal more easily. This psychological principle of sensory used in teaching practice, is theintuitional instruction. Situational language teaching embodies this teaching method in a verydirect way. By introducing and creating situations to students’ visual and auditory sense, itallows students to perceive, understand and use the things they learn. Concretizing of subjectmatters can guide the students to learn more efficiently.
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Chapter Two Ways to Apply Situational Teaching Approach toGrammar Class
2.1 Create Intuitive Situation
Intuitive situation refers to the teachers by using physical model and intuitive means toteach a language. This teaching principle reflects students’ awareness of the law, givesstudents sensibility, image and specific knowledge, and help to improve students' interests,reduce the boring feeling, motivate their learning of abstract concepts.The intuitive teachingsituation can change the abstract knowledge into the knowledge of the image, staticknowledge into dynamic knowledge,which helps to display the internal structure of things, therelationship between them and development process, and help students form scientificconcepts to a better understanding about the deep knowledge and apply knowledge flexibly.In grammar teaching, the grammar concepts and rules are abstract and boring, so it isnecessary to create intuitive situation which can strengthen the interest in the process ofteaching and learning. In the middle school English grammar teaching, intuitive situation canbe created according to the specific teaching content reasonably. Such as the teaching of thepresent continuous tense can be used to represent the "blame" (You are always being late.),teachers can read aloud to promote students' understanding through the differentpronunciation intonation demonstration. When distinguish the present past tense and theperfect tense, a line can be used to indicate the time successively.
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2.2 Create Cooperation Situation
Create cooperation situation means the teachers should fully promote the teachingdemocracy, and become the rights of the students to listen, remember, and answer, it is ateaching for the students to have the right to speak, evaluate, and ask at the same time.Creation of cooperation situation for students and teachers needs to achieve the harmony onemotional experience, this kind of harmony means that teachers and students both meet theirneeds. To achieve this kind of emotional harmony, teachers must take the initiative to shortenthe psychological distance between the students, they must trust, love their students, andestablish a democratic and equal relationship between themselves and students.Createcooperation situation in grammar teaching, which is beneficial to change the rigid boringacademic lecture teaching, and create a loose interesting teaching into daily lifecommunication. For example, in teaching the use of the past tense, teachers don't have towrite on the blackboard the structure, and then let the student to carry on the simple Englishtranslation or English sentences. But at first to explain to students the usage and structure ofthe past tense, and then create such a situation: “Yesterday I had a family visit, at eight o'clock in the evening, Xiao Li was painting a picture.” Ask What the other kids were doing atthat time, which requires the students perform this activity, and must use the past tense, suchas: “What were you doing at this time last night?” “I was doing my homework/...” In this way,the boring rules change into lively knowledge by application exercises, teachers can receivean unexpected effect.
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Chapter Two Ways to Apply Situational Language Teaching.....16
2.1 Create Intuitive Situation........ 18
2.2 Create Cooperation Situation........ 19
2.3 Create Aesthetic Situation....... 20
2.4 Create Problem Situation........ 20
Chapter Three Findings and Discussion........22
3.1 Analysis of Teachers' Basic Information.........22
3.2 Analysis of Teachers’ Questionnaires........22
3.3 Analysis of Students’ Questionnaires........26
3.4 Analysis of Teachers’ and Students’ Interview......30
3.5 Teaching Samples........36
3.6 Summary......... 41
Chapter ThreeFindings and Discussion
3.1 Analysis of Teachers' Basic Information
By looking at the different data, it is easily to see almost all the teachers thinkgrammar teaching is important, some has devoted much time on it, there are still someteachers think it is not necessary to pay much attention on grammar teaching, studentsjust need to master the basic knowledge. Generally speaking, teachers haverecognized that our students lack of foreign language environment to learn a newlanguage, so grammar teaching is essential. The data above shows that nearly half of the English teachers regard helpingstudents to get high scores in test, especially the college entrance examination, as thebiggest thing in grammar teaching. Some teachers has got the idea that grammarteaching is not only to teach basic knowledge, but to improve students’ reading andwriting ability, to get them more input information. But for improving communicativeability, some teachers consider it is not relevant to grammar teaching. All in all,grammar teaching is exam-oriented.
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Conclusion
With the speeding up of the pace of globalization, learning English will becomea big trend, only effective English teaching can raise students' communicativecompetence. So the topic how to optimize the grammar teaching will remain constantall the time. In this paper, the author introduced the grammar teaching from its history,the situational teaching approach and its research at home or abroad, as well as itstheoretical basis. Then she conducted some surveys combined with the characteristicsof the situational teaching approach and the students in high schools. This thesis putemphasis on the importance to change the current situation of grammar teaching inChina’s high school, and also gave some strategies and suggestions for the Englishteachers: teachers can create situations which are related to students’ daily life, andalso they can use the multi-media to help the teaching. But at the same time, theauthor found that, there were still many problems about situation creating amongEnglish teachers: for the college entrance exam, teachers have to implement theirteaching and students have to do some specific items according to the exam, soEnglish classroom becomes a very boring and inefficient place.
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