An Empirical Study On Primary English Grammar Instruction Under The Guidance Of Acquisition-Learning Theories

English grammar is an important and necessary part of English teaching in primary school. The English Curriculum Standard of Compulsory Education(2011) published by the Ministry of Education itemized out the grammar clearly. With the publication of The English Curriculum Standard of Compulsory Education (2011), the primary English teachers can overall grasp the grammar which should be mastered by the pupils, and how to help students master the English grammar of The English Curriculum Standard of Compulsory Education (2011) has also been a thoughtful problem for such teachers.In primary school, teachers mainly use the implicit instruction, they don’t talk about the language rules directly; instead, they take advantage of a large number of scenarios for students to communicate in English. The teachers don’t make any instruction on the grammar rules; instead, the students master the sentences structure and grammar rules gradually by themselves. As a result, many students don’t know the grammar rules clearly, and they often make lots of grammatical mistakes when they communicate in English.In view of the current situation of English grammar teaching in primary school, we put forward the integration of implicit instruction and explicit instruction based on the theories of Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning Theories and Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis in language teaching. This thesis focuses on the following two research questions:(1) What are the effects of implicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction?(2) What are the effects of the integration of implicit and explicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction?In order to prove that the effects of the integration of implicit and explicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction are much better than the effects of implicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction, we carried out an experiment:two classes of Grade Six taught by the author herself (one was an experimental class, the other was a contrastive class.) from a primary school of Changsha city were taken for this teaching experiment. The two classes were parallel classes, the difference was that they got different teaching methods. The experimental class received the integrative grammar instruction and the contrastive class received the implicit instruction. The study lasted three months (from the beginning of September to the end of November,2014). Before the beginning of the experiment, the participants received a pro-test. The results of the tests were analyzed by SPSS Statistics 21, demonstrating that there was no significant difference between testing results of the two classes and that the students stayed at the same English level. After the experiment, both of the two classes were assessed by a post-test and a questionnaire. The data of the tests were analyzed by SPSS statistics 21 again. The results indicated that the average scores of the experimental class were much higher than those of the contrastive class, and there existed significant difference between the two classes. Also, the results of the questionnaire showed that the experimental class students’interest, confidence and comprehensive abilities were all increased. This result is consistent with the former hypothesis:the effects of the integration of implicit and explicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction are much better than the effects of implicit teaching on primary English grammar instruction.We hope that this study can help English teachers of primary schools update the concept of grammar teaching, optimize the teaching method, and grasp reasonable "degree" and "quantity" of grammar teaching.