Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
Grammar is one of the most important parts in English language knowledge.Mastering grammar is the important way to improve English language proficiency. Asan extremely important part of foreign language teaching, there are two commonproblems of grammar teaching. The first effect of grammar teaching doesn’t seemquite good. In class, the teacher seems to make every grammar rule clear; the studentsseem to have mastered the grammar taught in class, and then also did many relevantexercises, however, they can’t avoid making mistakes in speaking and writing articlesafter class. The phenomenon that the students learned in class but hardly use inpractice is called “inert knowledge” by the philosopher Whitehead. The other problemof grammar teaching is that both grammar and grammar teaching are boring and dullfor most of students.At present, there exist some kinds of phenomena in English grammar teaching ofjunior high school in our country. One is the teacher stresses on the grammar teachingtoo much but ignores the cultivation of language ability. At the same time, explaininggrammar rules and practicing mechanical sentence patterns are the major ways toteach English grammar. The students who learn English grammar are just for sittingan examination, but they can’t apply grammar knowledge to actual languagecommunication. Under the influence of the communicative teaching method, anotherphenomenon occurs in grammar teaching, namely, many English teachers partiallythink that communicative teaching method is just to foster English listening, speaking,reading and writing skills and weaken even abandon grammar teaching.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
The English New Curriculum Standard requires the teacher to build relaxed,democratic and harmonious teaching atmosphere and set the stage for what thestudents are interested in English learning. Thus the teacher can lead and help thestudents learn the language knowledge which they study in real life as possibly as wecan. We should put the teaching process into a language communicative process, andmake the students use the language in every proper situation, and evoke the students’strong interest in language learning. The new senior English Curriculum Standard notonly focuses on grammar teaching but also focuses on integrated language capability.The finial goal of English grammar teaching is to develop the students’ Englishcommunicative ability and integrated language capability. Through studyingsituation-based teaching approach, the author aims at combining teaching practicewith it and studying how to combine the situation-based teaching approach withEnglish grammar teaching in senior high school. Grammar teaching in situation canimprove the students’ communicative ability and stir up their interests in learningEnglish and eventually advance students’ integrated language capability
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Introduction to Situational Teaching Method
Situational Teaching method (also called as Situational Language Teaching) wasoriginally called Oral English method. According to Pittman, Situation refers to “Weexplain the role of the new language projects through the example, demonstration,physical objects, sign language, images and other teaching aids, followed by repeatedpractice and replacement” (qtd. in Richards & Rodgers, 2000: 38). In the 1950s,Hornby put forward the “Situational Approach”, followed by the structure of theStructural-Situational Approach and Situational Approach. In the early 1980s, J. C.Richards and T S. Rodgers (2000) summarized the characteristics of the situationalteaching method for the first time. In order to avoid confusion, they adopt theSituational Language Teaching (SLT), and SLT became synonymous with thesituation teaching method.Situational teaching method originated from English teaching, and the scholarsin China are not also identical to its definition. Li Jilin (1999: 4) argues that thesituational teaching method is “a kind of teaching mode that makes full use of theimage, create classic context, stir up students’ learning mood, combines the cognitiveactivities and emotional activities”.
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2.2 Research Abroad
Since the 1930s, the British linguists have launched a study on the use ofdiscourse structure and situational context of language. J. R. Firth thinks thatlanguage is a social process and a means of social life rather than simply a set ofagreed-upon regulations and signals. He agrees that language in practical use shouldbe the object of linguistic study. He holds the view that a hierarchy of contexts shouldbe used to study the meaning of the language and that context contains not onlylinguistic context but also context of situation. For him, the context of situation aswell as all kinds of linguistic descriptions, the phonology and the grammar isstatements of meaning. Then a linguist can handle a language by means of' describingmeanings in terms of context of situations.Halliday insists that if words, utterances and even whole chunks of discourse arestudied alone, it is inadequate for the understanding of them. Only in context can theybe fully understood. The context includes the physical setting, participants, othersemiotic forms such as gestures, gaze, and so on. For him, the context of situation canbe best understood in terms of three features: the field of discourse, the tenor ofdiscourse and the mode of discourse. They are the general concepts necessary fordescribing all that is of great linguistic significance in the context of situation.
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Chapter Three Grammar Teaching Based on Situated Cognition Theory....... 14
3.1 Situated Cognition Theory...... 14
3.2 Grammar Teaching Based on the SCT ..... 16
3.3 Principles of Creating English Teaching Situation Based on the SCT..... 18
Chapter Four Research Methodology ........ 20
4. 1 Research Design......... 20
4.2 Research Process......... 24
4.3 Implementation of the English Grammar Teaching Based on the SCT.... 26
4.4 Analysis of the Study Results ....... 38
Chapter Five Conclusion.... 48
5.1 Major Findings of the Research.... 48
5.2 Limitations of the Research .... 49
5.3 Revelation of the Research ..... 50
Chapter Four Research Methodology
4. 1 Research Design
The new English curriculum standard requires teachers to conduct pragmatic andmeaningful and high-level grammar teaching with the purpose of internalizing theknowledge of grammar and achieving the aim of training students’ comprehensivelanguage competence. This research aims at analyzing and discussing the effect ofspecific grammar teaching based on the SCT by the empirical research into attributiveclause teaching with questionnaires pre-and-post experiment and data collected inclass, trying to design real and virtual contexts by attributive clause teaching andhoping to provide information and reference for high school English teachers andresearchers. On the premise of retaining theoriginal class members to the greatest extent, students are divided into two classesaccording to the marks of examination entrance to senior high school. In this school,grammar teaching based on the Situated Recognition Theory is conducted in twoclasses of senior one.In order to make research results more scientific, the sample size is 65 studentseach class. So the author chose two classes as research object. This study respectivelymarked two classes as Class A and Class B, and the basic situation of the students areas follows in Table 4.1:
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Conclusion
On the basis of English grammar teaching in grade one of senior high school,exploration of situated cognition theory, questionnaire survey and an empiricalresearch, the chapter concludes the research conclusion and enlightenment from theprevious chapters. This chapter mainly puts forward suggestions on the senior highschool English grammar teaching based on situated cognition theory and provides thereference for researchers and scholars. Exploring the situated cognition theory and implementing an empirical research,collecting and analyzing questionnaire survey data, the author puts forward thefollowing three conclusions in this paper, which helps to construct the high schoolEnglish grammar based on situated cognition theory.To start with, teaching based on the SCT can improve students’ interests inlearning grammar. When designing teaching situation, they not only transform thetarget grammar rules into the specific image or situations that make the input of targetgrammar interesting and practical, but also design a harmonious grammar teachingatmosphere that can reduce or even eliminate their anxiety for students, inspiringstudents to actively participate in the process of learning grammar. In addition,teachers should also provide plenty of opportunities, where students consciouslyapply the target grammar knowledge to the actual language communication andthereby grammar learning becomes meaningful.
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Reference (omitted)