On The Application Of Communicative Approach To English Grammar Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

The principal problem of students who are from the Higher Vocational Colleges lies inthe syntax using but not merely the mastery of grammar rules. Quite a few of the students areconfused in applying the grammar rules to express themselves, thus, they have difficulty inusing the English language to communicate with others in their daily life. Meanwhile, withthe rapid development of China’s economy and further opening to the outside world, Englishhas become the main medium of international political negotiations, trade contracts, anddissemination of worldwide information. In such a case, it seems imperative that students caneffectively use grammar rules to express what they think about and make the role of Englishplay to the fullest extent.From perspectives of linguists such as Krashen and Swain，grammar knowledge that theteacher imparts to the students is explicit knowledge; The knowledge students acquireunconsciously is implicit knowledge, for example, students can use their mother tonguewithout difficulty to communicate naturally. Learning language aims at using the language,thus, it’s rather important to internalize the explicit knowledge into implicit knowledge. Input(noticing)�'Intake(reasoning and hypothesizing)�'structuring and restructuring�'Output(automation). The achievement of this process can internalize the grammar knowledgestudents have learnt and cultivate their language sense, which will further enhance students’communicative competence. Only by repeated use in meaningful communicative activities,can grammar knowledge be internalized. Therefore, necessity of integrating grammarteaching with Communicative Approach arises.According to Hymes’s Communicative Competence Theory, students’ language ability not only lies in producing sentences that are grammatical but also lies in the ability whetherhe can use the language properly. According to the Constructivism Learning Theory, studentsnot merely play the role of passive recipient and person of knowledge infusion but the role ofprocessor of information and initiative constructor, and teachers shift their role of imparterand indoctrinator of knowledge to the role of helper and promoter of constructivism.Based on the theories above and current study of Communicative Approach on grammarteaching abroad and at home, this thesis puts forward the feasibility of applyingCommunicative Approach and tries to test the positive effect of this approach on improvingvocational college students’ grammar level and grammar competence by teaching experiment.The detailed research questions are （1）Whether the application of Communicative Approachin grammar teaching can improve students’ grammar level on the whole compared with that ofTraditional Methods and ultimately improve students’ grammatical competence to achieve thegoal of communication? If it can, what the reasons may be? If it can not, why is so?（2）Whether the teaching of Communicative Approach is more effective than the traditional way(Grammar-translation Method) of teaching in practical teaching in Higher VocationalColleges?Under the guidance of previous proposed research questions, the author selectedrespectively46students from two natural classes of Law Major and Procuratorial Major inHenan Procuratorial Vocational College as the participants of the experiment, and thenconducted the teaching experiment which lasted for nearly4months (a semester) in the twoclasses. One class is called experimental class whose short form is EC, and the other one iscalled controlled class whose short form is CC. During the experiment, CommunicativeApproach was applied in the experimental class and the Traditional Method (especiallyGrammar-translation Method) was employed in the controlled class. In order to make sure thevalidity and reliability of the experiment, the author designed the pre-questionnaire、post- questionnaire, pre-test and post-test so as to know the changes of students’ learning interest,learning confidence, learning effectiveness before and after the experiment. The pre-questionnaire and pre-test showed that the learning interest and global proficiency of the twoclasses were similar. The pre-test consisted of basic vocabulary, grammar items (presentcontinuous tense, past continuous tense, present perfect tense and attributive clause), syntax(reading comprehension). After the test, the author used SPSS17.0to analyze the data results.From the data results, it could clearly find that the English grammar proficiency of the twoclasses was almost the same. The content and difficulty of the post-test were also the similarto that of the pre-test. And after the test, the author also used SPSS17.0to analyze the dataresults, which showed the students’ grades of experimental class were much higher than thoseof controlled class. There was great significance in grammar items, namely presentcontinuous tense, past continuous tense, present perfect tense and attributive clause betweenthe two classes. At the same time, after the post-test, reading comprehension of the studentswho were from the experimental class also improved.The study findings were (1) Compared with Traditional Methods (Grammar-translationMethod), the application of Communicative Approach in grammar teaching can betterimprove students’ grammar level on the whole and ultimately improve students’ grammaticalcompetence to achieve the goal of communication.(2) Compared with Traditional Methods(Grammar-translation Method), the teaching of Communicative Approach is more effective inpractical teaching in Higher Vocational Colleges, meanwhile, in a certain way, the applicationof Communicative Approach can also enhance students’ learning interest and improve theircommunicative competence.Ultimately, based on the analysis of questionnaires and tests, further English grammarteaching in Higher Vocational Colleges was offered. Besides，the implications and limitationsof this study and suggestions for the future research were also pointed out.