Application of Integrating the CA and the GTM in English Grammar Teaching in Junior Middle School

叶丽健++张生祥

【Abstract】Nowadays more and more teachers have come to know the importance of communication in the target language in real life situations.A lot of them try to apply Communicative Approach （CA） to grammar teaching.The grammar translation method （GTM） is also an important way to teach English，especially in current examination system.The CA can play all the enthusiasm of the students or their motivation to learn， while The Grammar translation method is to help lay a solid foundation.Therefore， the author considers that the CA should be combined with the GTM.This thesis focuses on the application of integrating the CA and the GTM to grammar teaching in junior English classrooms.The author provides a detailed study by means of questionnaires， interviews， pre-test and post-test， as well as an experiment between two parallel classes.The result shows that the integration of the CA and the GTM to grammar teaching is more accepted by students， and it can improve students grammatical learning interest and competence better than the traditional method.

【Key words】Communicative Approach； Grammar Translation Method； grammar teaching

Research Background

After a new round of curriculum reform， English Curriculum standards （Experimental edition） （2001） points out that English curriculum should focus on the cultivation of students real-life language using ability and geared to meet the students interest.The new English Curriculum standards advocate teachers to adopt CA in their class.Over the past years， with the introduction of CA， the fluency of students oral English has been greatly improved.In recent twenty years， Communicative Approach has been one of the most popular approaches in our country， so many scholars and educators contribute to the study.

On the other hand， for a long time， grammar teaching has been a hot issue in foreign language teaching.The Grammar Translation Method （GTM） is also one of the important ways of teaching English.Under the circumstance of paper-test assessment in China， grammar is an indispensable part of English teaching.However， they pay too more attention to the structure of language.Students grasp a lot of language knowledge， but they do not know how to use it in true communicative situation.The reason is that the GTM ignores to develop students communicative competence （Cited by Guan， 2012）.

By this means， it can be inferred that the English grammar teaching mode which only uses the CA or the GTM does not reach the desired goal.

Harvey thinks that the traditional grammar translation method may be boring to most of students but it also has its advantages.Roberts insisted that： “communicative approach which comes from Britain are more practical for people to use their daily life”， Harvey further pointed out that we should put the advantages of the traditional and practical of these two different language methods together or must not work next to the modern English teaching methods， the two teaching methods cant be used alone.（Cited Liu， 2013.）

This thesis tries to investigate the effects of the Communicative Approach and the Grammar Translation Method in grammar teaching with the aim to enhance students grammatical learning interest and competence.

Research Design

Research objects

The thesis aims to know the current English grammar classroom， and know more about the teachers and the students perception of Communicative Approach.Whats more， the researcher uses a case study to check the effect of the Communicative Approach and the Grammar Translation Method in grammar teaching.

Research subjects

The subjects are from two parallel classes of Junior Grade Eight， Houzhai Middle School， Yiwu.This is a public junior middle school， and the students English level is on the average level of the same aged students.One class （Class 5） is the experimental class （E-class） with 40 students.The other class （Class 6） is the control class （C-class） with 41 students.E-class adopted the integration of the CA and the GTM， with a lot of communicative activities； while C-class adopted mostly traditional way to teach grammar， the Grammar Translation Method， with a lot of explaining and doing exercises， few dialogues.

Research instruments

In this study three kinds of research methods are used： pre-test and post-test， questionnaires on CA to grammar teaching and an interview with teachers in Houzhai Middle School.This experiment lasted for three months.

Experimental procedure

The experiment was carried out after the National Holiday in 2014.It lasted three months from October to December in 2014.The experiment was divided into three stages.

The first stage lasted for one week.The main task in this week is to hand out the questionnaires and pre-tests in both E-class and C-class.

The second stage is from October 13th to December 18th.That is the experimental time.The author taught the grammar items- Modal verbs， sensory verbs， Passive voice， Direct speech and Indirect speech.Each of them has three grammar lessons every week， with forty minutes each lesson.

The time plan of the teaching contents is showed as follow tables：

In the last week of the experiment， interviews were conducted to check the attitudes toward the method.And the post-tests aims to check whether there were any differences between the two classes.

Traditional grammar lesson

Traditional grammar lesson in junior school class mostly adopts Grammar Translation Method， by explaining of sentence structures and doing exercise.

At the beginning of class， the teacher writes some sample sentence on the black board or draws the attention to the text book.Or they may do some revision to warm up.

Then， the teacher will do some reasoning， analyzing and comparing about the sample sentence in native language rather than in English.The teacher will conclude the rules or points and present them for students.

After the explanation， students will be asked to do some mechanical drills： do some exercises or make short ask-answer activities， translate sentences and retell the story to consolidate the knowledge.

Testing paper will examine their learning result.So the testing score is their only target in the study.More attention will be paid to accuracy.When the students make some mistakes， the teacher will point them out immediately.Students try hard to get high score for their study.

The grammar teaching by the integrating the CA and the GTM

In this E-class， there are four steps where some kinds of communicative activities are used， such as

The first step is warming-up and leading in.The teacher shows a short video or some pictures， which helps to intrigue students interest.Then the teacher asks students some questions.The teacher has a simple communication between students.

The second step is presentation.The teacher asks students to do the pair work or group work and let themselves to communicate with each other and do some discoveries， so as to present the points that they should learn.Discuss in their group and do some short summary.At last， the teacher summarizes each groups discussion， and gets a conclusion.

The third step is practice.The teacher designs various forms of activities to invite students join in.In this step， students will consolidate the knowledge and improve their competence.They may do some mechanical exercises， some ask-answer questions to make some dialogues.Students may also discuss with each other， and make sentences to get more points for their groups.

The forth step is production.The teacher will give them a main task， and students should cooperate with each other and finish it perfect.Sometimes， they need to be brave and show up to do some role plays.They may be invited to describe something or tell some stories， etc.Also， they should do some interviews to make a report.Then show up and share with classmates.When finishing these activities， they also compete with each other.The group that gets the most points will be the winner.

At last， its the homework.Some levels are designed to students， so that they are able to finish the homework based their English learning process and competence.Finish the short passage in step four， and share with group members.Do some dialogue with your friends and write them down.Interview the people around you， and have some pleasant conversations after class.

Results and Discussion

Analysis of Pre-test and Post-tests

The objectives of those two tests are to verify the effect of applying the integration of the Communicative Approach and the Grammar Translation Method to grammar lesson.

From the above table， the mean scores of the two classes are almost the same， which means the students level of English proficiency before the experiment is more or less.However， we can see that a great contrast is made between the E-class and C-class.In each learning period， students in E-class got more points contrast to the C-class.In the final post-test， they got 84.3.The mean score rises 4.3.In the control class， the progress is not so obvious.In the pre-test， the deviation between experimental class and control class is -0.4.After the three months experiment， the deviation rises to 2.3.The data shows that the integration of the CA and the GTM can improve students grammatical learning competence， and it is better than the traditional grammar translation method.

Analysis of Questionnaires

Ⅰ.Motivation and Attitude towards English Grammar learning

1.Do you think it is important to learn English grammar or not？

2.As for you， are you interested in learning English grammar？

Analysis：

From the table one， we can find over more than seventy percent students think English grammar is important.However， from table four， less than one forth of the students show great interests in learning English grammar.Around forty percent of them think they are only a little bit interested in learning it.

Ⅱ.Class， teachers and students

3.In your English class， who plays the main role？

4.When you have English grammar class， which activities take up the most of time when learning grammar？

Analysis：

The result suggests that the majority of the students think that the teachers play the main role in the grammar teaching.The students just do as the teachers said.During the class， more than thirty percent of students think teachers spend a lot of time analyzing the grammar rules.Nearly fifty percent think it took them much time to do exercises.Whats more， less than ten students think the communicative activities takes up the most of time in their class.It reveals that the class is mainly controlled by the teachers， and a lot of rules and exercises make students boring to learn grammar.

5.When you have English lesson， do you often have the chance to speak English？

Analysis：

Table five shows that only few students frequently have the chance to speak English.Nearly ten students seldom could have chances of participate in class to show them out.

Ⅲ.Suggestions towards English grammar learning

6.In your English class， what way you wish most to improve your grammar study？

Analysis：

From the table， students strongly desire their teachers could give them more chance to communicate with others in class.Most junior middle school students understand the importance of student role and nearly fifty percent of them expressed a strong wish that they could be able to participate in the communicative activities more frequently to practice the language.

According to the statistics of questionnaireⅠ， it show that more than 36 （90%） students think that it is important to learn English grammar.Most teachers usual way to teach grammar is the traditional way， which students have few interests.And nearly 60% students have little chance to speak English.More than 50% wish to have to communicative activities.It is a promising method to apply CA to grammar teaching.

Findings

From the data analysis and discussion in the previous chapter， three findings can be obtained.

Firstly， the integration of the CA and the GTM can intrigue students interest.The students are quite satisfied with this teaching method.Whats more， students are willing to take part in the communicative activities.The students are quite more interested in grammar learning with this teaching method.

Secondly， this grammar teaching method can reduce the difficulty of learning grammar.In the experiment， grammar is taught through associating with communicative situation and more communication is conducted.All these are good for students to accept and use grammar.

Thirdly， from the comparison between the Pre-test and Post-test achievements， the integrative method can improve students comprehensive language application ability， better than the traditional translation method.

The researcher hopes this thesis will be of some value to teachers who are eager to improve the effectiveness of grammar class and bring a total new teaching mode to your students.

References：

[1]教育部.英语课程标准（实验稿）[Z].北京：北京师范大学出版社， 2001.

[2]Guan， Xuefeng.2012.A Research on Classification Teaching Mode for English Grammar in Middle School- Taking Some English Grammar Items in Middle School for Instance.Yangtze University.

[3]Liu， Lili.2013.The Research of Integrating Grammar Translation Method and Communicative Approach in Grammar Teaching in Junior School.Guang Zhou University， Unpublished thesis.

作者简介：叶丽健（1987—），女，汉族，义乌市后宅中学教师，硕士，研究方向：英语教育。