Abstract

Grammar teaching has always been one of the hot topics in foreign language teaching and in linguistic study. Traditional teaching methods are overemphasized the mastery of grammar rules, which let students gradually lose interest in English study and don’t know how to use English properly in reality as well. While with the further development of the theory and practice on the Situational Teaching Method, more and more researches focus on the application of the STM to English class, especially to the oral English class. However, there are few studies on the application of STM to English grammar teaching in Junior Middle Schools. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a study on it.

Based on the above understanding, an experiment has been carried out to test the feasibility of STM to English grammar teaching in Junior Middle Schools by providing real situations, task-based activities, and different kinds of opportunities of language use. Two parallel classes of Grade Eight from a Junior Middle School in HZ were selected as the subject. The experimental class is taught grammar in the situational method while the control class is taught in a traditional way. During the process of creating situations and designing activities, the relevance between situations and stories as well as students' life experience is taken into account, two relevant teaching cases included. The methods of questionnaire survey, teaching videos analysis and grammar test are taken.

The results of the experiment prove that using STM in grammar teaching can not only enhance students’ motivation in grammar learning, but also help students increase grammar scores. In addition, further suggestions are put forward for junior middle school English grammar teaching.

Keywords: situational teaching method (STM); English grammar teaching; junior middle schools

Contents

Abstract

摘要

I. Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Research Purpose-1

1.3 Research Significance-2

1.4 Framework of the paper-2

2. Literature Review-4

2.1 An Overview of Grammar Teaching-4

2.1.1 The Definition of Grammar-4

2.1.2 The Importance and Necessity of Grammar Teaching-4

2.2 An Overview of Situational Teaching Method-5

2.2.1 Concept and Development of STM-5

2.2.2 Principles of STM-5

2.3 Researches on Grammar Teaching with Situational Teaching Method-6

2.3.1 Study on Grammar Teaching with STM abroad-6

2.3.2 Study on Grammar Teaching with STM at home-7

2.3.3 Comment-8

3. Methodology-9

3.1 Research Questions-9

3.2 Participants-9

3.3 Instruments-9

3.4 Teaching Procedures and Data Collection-10

3.4.1 Relevance between Situations and Student’s Life Experience-10

3.4.2 Relevance between Situations and Stories-12

4. Results and Data Analysis-17

4.1 Analysis of Student Questionnaire-17

4.2 Analysis of teaching videos-18

4.3 Analysis of Grammar Test-18

5. Conclusion-20

5.1 Major Findings-20

5.2 Suggestions-20

5.3 Limitations-21

References-22