A Comparative Study Of Enhanced Input,Processing Instruction And 3P Grammar Teaching Method In Senior High School English Grammar Teaching

Many studies have shown that grammar teaching is essential and plays a positive role in L2 English learning. Different grammar instruction methods have sprung up but the traditional 3P grammar instruction, i.e., Presentation-Practice-Production, is still dominant in middle school English classes in China. At the meantime, many researchers and English teachers try to find out better treatments to facilitate learners' grammar acquisition in meaningful communicative classes. Input enhancement and input processing are very popular L2 input-based theories in western countries. Based on these theories, the present study investigated the learning effects of Textual Enhancement (TE),Input Processing Instruction (PI) and 3P grammar instruction and tried to compare the initial learning and retention effect on the acquisition of unreal conditionals. The study tried to answer the following three questions: 1) Do TE, PI and 3P facilitate the acquisition of unreal conditionals by Chinese senior high school EFL learners? 2) In the initial learning, which (TE, PI or 3P) has the best effect on the target structure? 3) Which(TE, PI or 3P) has the best retention effect on the target structure?The participants of the study were from three intact classes of a senior high school in Nanjing. The study followed a design of pre-test, treatment, immediate post-test and delayed post-test. Each treatment lasted for 40 minutes in regular classes given by the author. The immediate post-tests were administered right after the treatment and the delayed post-tests were conducted one week later. After data collection, the author analyzed the statistics by SPSS 19.0 to compare the efficacy of the three instruction methods.The research findings are as follows: 1) Both PI and 3P grammar instructions are effective. TE treatment is effective in initial learning but falls short for retention effect.And there is significant difference between TE, PI and 3P groups. 2) In initial learning,3P has the best effect based on learners' mean score, followed by PI and TE, but there is no significant difference between PI and 3P. There is significant difference between 3P and TE, PI and TE. 3) With regard to the retention effect, 3P and PI work better than TE.And there is no significant difference between 3P and PI.The research findings indicate that explicit explanation about language structures plays an effective and necessary role in English learning in the Chinese context. English teachers are suggested to involve the learners with grammar via meaningful activities such as- structured input activities.