Content-Based Instruction (CBI)in Grammar Eaching Of English Majors

Content-Based Instruction is a teaching philosophy which integrates language learningwith content learning. It has already succeeded in second language or foreign languageteaching abroad and also been accepted by Chinese scholars in recent years. However, therehave been few studies applying CBI to the grammar teaching of English majors. This thesis isto investigate the effect of Content-Based Instruction (CBI) upon grammar teaching andlearning. The study attempts to test the following hypotheses:1) CBI is effective in Englishgrammar teaching to English majors.2) CBI can motivate and interest students' grammarlearning.3) CBI can help students have a better understanding of the meaning and the use ofgrammatical rules.4) CBI can help students improve their integrated skills.57sophomore students from a certain normal university in China were divided into theexperiment group and the control group,which were given one-semester's English grammarteaching (respectively with CBI and regular grammar instruction). In this research, bothquantitative study and qualitative study will be employed. Pre-questionnaire andpost-questionnaire are used before and after CBI teaching experiment in the class to collectstudents' attitudes towards the different teaching approaches. Pre-test and post-test areemployed to test the English grammar proficiency of students and carry on the comparativestudy between the experiment group and the control group. The interview, conducted when theexperiment nearly comes to an end, is to gather in-depth information about the effects of CBI.The study indicates that the Content-Based Instruction is applicable for English grammarteaching. With much exposure to the authentic English learning context for the learners, CBIgrammar class promotes the learners' motivation for grammar learning and provides learnerswith a natural and authentic learning context, which is of great help to the development oflearners' grammar proficiency and communicative competence as well. It is better than theregular grammar class for the learners to grasp grammar items, to have a better understandingof the meaning and the use of grammar rules, and to help the learners improve their integratedskills.