The Application Of Inquiry Teaching To Grammatical Class In Senior High Schools

English grammar is absolutely important in the English language, and also it isthe core of English learning in terms of the skills of listening, reading, speaking andwriting. But unfortunately at the time being there exist two main traditional teachingphenomena－ignorance of grammar teaching , which no longer corresponds to thenew curriculum. Students have to follow what teachers teach, therefore, they can’tbring their conscious activities into play. This model has been confining students’creativity as well as the teaching quality. The writer hears of a lot talking aboutcomplaints from high English teachers that many students have poor grammarknowledge and have no correct concept of English grammar at all. Many students stilldon’t know how to use verbs, non-verbs, link-verbs, and what is noun-clauses,attributive clauses, adverbial clauses and predictive clauses. They can’t use grammarflexibly at all, and instead grammar sense is their only choice. With time going on,grammar is gradually becoming one of the biggest problems for many senior highschool students, but what we should take into consideration is that it is related to theimproper teaching methods we adopt in grammar as English teachers. What we neednowadays is the new-type talents who have enough abilities to communicate withEnglish in correct English grammar when China has been open to the would and inthe new period when China has joined the WTO.With time going by, our books content have changed a lot, but teachers’teachingconcept and methods are still traditional and out of date. Most English teachersdesigned their class without taking the students into consideration, and still use theconventional teaching methods to teach grammar, which is quite boring andineffective. When teaching grammar, teachers dominate the whole class whilestudents don’t participate in class. Let alone the training and construction of thestudents’language using skill. In such kind of teaching method, the needs of thestudents can’t be satisfied and they never taste the pleasure of learning grammar.Besides, many teachers neglect the system and persistence of grammar, using traditional trainings method, which frustrates the studying will and motivation of thestudents.In order to practice the new idea of the new curriculum and promote grammarteaching effectively, the writer tries to adopt the inquiry teaching method in grammarclass in high schools. Based on the writer’s own teaching experiences, the charactersof high school students in learning and psychology and the theory of Constructivism,the writer puts the inquiry teaching method into practice in the grammar class in highschool. Inquiry-based grammar teaching is a teaching model that provides studentswith abundant changes to express, query, inquiry, discuss problems for students andmake them apply knowledge in solving practical problems. The thesis is trying toanswer the following three questions: How can the inquiry teaching method stimulatethe students’interest and efficiency in learning grammar? What impact and influencewill the inquiry teaching have on the traditional teaching method?The role of the teacher in an inquiry-based classroom is quite different from thatof a teacher in a conventional classroom. Instead of providing direct instruction tostudents, teachers help students generate their own content-related questions andguide the investigation that follows. When teachers choose to use an inquiry-basedapproach, they commit to provide rich experiences that provoke students’thinkingand curiosity. An inquiry-based curriculum develops and validates habits of mind thatcharacterize a life-long leaner. It teaches students to pose difficult questions andfosters the desire and skills to acquire knowledge about the world. Students are givenchances to take possession of their own studying, a skill essential for one to besuccessful in universities and in most professional settings. In addition, aninquiry-based approach allows students to draw relations between academic contentand their won lives, which can be very important for culturally and linguisticallydiverse learners in particular.Inquiry-based teaching method values the development of students’intelligence,creativity and learning ability and establishes the foundation for work and study in thelife. It is a pedagogical approach that invites students to explore academic content byposing, investigation and answering questions. This approach puts students’questions at the center for the curriculum and places as much value on the component skill ofresearch as it does on the knowledge and understanding of content. In the followingthesis, it begins with the concept of grammar as well as the theory of the inquiryteaching, which is based on the full understanding of the importance of grammar inhigh school teaching and the present situation of grammar teaching in China. Thewriter reflects on the problems which exist in high school grammar teaching. AsEnglish teachers, firstly, we ought to use the textbooks flexibly and creatively.Secondly we can centre and summarize the dispersive grammar points. Rearrange andadjust some grammar points. Besides, we English teachers should also make ourteaching effective and adopt the inquiry teaching methods into our grammar class,which can stimulate and promote the emotion and interest of the students. Only bythis way can we develop the ability of the students’using English, thus realizing thechief goal of the new curriculum. The thesis, closely connected with the writer’steaching practice, shows lots of teaching cases from the writer’s own teachingexperiences. With the analysis of the teaching experiment, the thesis gives a vividanswer to the questions mentioned above.Inquiry-based teaching is at the starting period at the time being; therefore, it isunavoidable that many problems appear. Definitely there must be some shortcomingsabout this new model, and certainly there must be some ideas and opinions whichmight not be correct and proper. Anyway the writer would appreciate it if the articlecould do a little bit help to the teaching of English grammar in high school. Finally,the writer hopes to make any help to the high school teachers through the thesis,which is aimed to provide some theory guidance and teaching suggestions in highschool grammar teaching.