Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Grammar plays an important role in English language teaching and learning. Inthe process of English grammar teaching, many teachers just focus on the rules orforms of grammar so that they neglect the communicative function of language.Although students have mastered a great deal of grammatical knowledge, most ofthem still have problems in oral production and written production in views oflanguage accuracy. Take simple past tense as an example, students learned thegrammar in junior high school but still make mistakes in their output.Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis is one of the most influentialtheories in second language acquisition. Many researchers have applied it to second orforeign language teaching. Krashen claims that human acquires language only byreceiving ‘comprehensible input’ and also he insists that speaking and writing are justthe results of learning instead of causes (Krashen 1985). In Krashen’s view, the studyof the structure of the language is needed to show clearly to learners so that it canhave educational advantages and values. According to this theory, teachers use avariety of teaching methods and approaches, in which they pay more attention to theinput of language rules than the students’output and production of language. However,Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis was proposed in 1985. It claims thatlearners cannot form a native-like language only by comprehensible input. Besides, itclaims the act of producing language, like speaking or writing, constitutes undercertain circumstances, part of the process of second language learning. Swain pointsout that opportunities are also necessary to produce comprehensible output fornon-native speakers and output is a key factor which affects language acquisition.Therefore, productive tasks are considered helpful for students to improve theirproficiency of past tense learning and enhance their grammatical competence inlearning the past tense. And for teachers, productive tasks can be used as a kind ofteaching methods in class to get better teaching quality and efficiency.
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1.2 Research Significance
Grammar is always considered as a rule or a static area of knowledge, so it isrigid and hard to change. From Larsen-Freeman’s point of view, grammar is a skill ora dynamic process, which she has called grammaring. Besides, there are threedimensions in language, namely, form, meaning, and use, but the methods of languageteaching commonly emphasize one or two of the three dimensions. For example, formis emphasized , but use is often neglected in grammar teaching. When teaching simplepast tense, teachers often focus on the form of the tense, regular and irregular verbs,so students just memorize the forms and irregular verbs. Even though students havemastered the grammatical knowledge of past tense, it is still a problem that they makelots of mistakes in their production.According to the researches of grammar teaching at home, Liu Zhongzheng & LiXi (2010) studied on methods and contents of grammar teaching research. The studyshows 75% of researches are non-empirical, which means researches about grammarteaching lack empirical studies in China. As for research subjects, most of studies arefor non-English major college students and only 6% of researches are for middleschool students.Ma Fukang (1998) is one of the rare cases in China to study grammar teaching inmiddle school. He explained with examples how to teach grammar through situationalteaching and group discussion. Dai Weidong & Chen Liping (2005) revealed theenlightenment of implicit cognitive study to English grammar teaching from theperspective of microcosmic cognitive psychology and interactive grammar teaching,and put forward the method of explicit interactive tasks.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Previous Studies of English Grammar Teaching
The role of grammar teaching in foreign language teaching and learning has longbeen of interest to
