A Study On The Application Of Metacognitive Strategies To English Grammar Teaching In Junior High Schools

Grammar is an important component of a language.English grammar is an indispensable part of English language teaching.In recent years,there have been two problems in English grammar teaching in junior high schools in C hina.O n the one hand,some junior high school English teachers put much emphasis on communicative teaching and practice of language skills but neglect grammar teaching,while a number of teachers still focus on the traditional teaching of grammar and translation and neglect the practical usage of language knowledge.On the other hand,some junior high school students have difficulties in grammar learning due to knowing little about efficient strategies of English grammar learning and having insufficient motivation for grammar learning.Metacognitive strategies are strategies about learning strategies.More and more researchers have realized that metacognitive strategies play an important role in improving students’ learning efficiency.The Revised National English Curriculum Standard emphasizes that English teachers of primary and secondary school should guide the students to use metacognitive strategies to plan,monitor and evaluate their English learning process.However,there have been few studies so far concerned w ith metacognitive strategies for English grammar learning,even fewer with junior high school students as subjects.This research aims to find out about how metacognitive strategies is applied in English grammar learning in junior high schools.The research adopts C hamot and O’Malley’s classification of metacognitive strategies into planning strategies,monitoring strategies and evaluating strategies.Altogether 80 students of grade 8 in Zhaoyang Junior High School are chosen as research subjects,40 in the experimental group and 40 in the controlled group.The author has conducted a 5-week-long training of metacognitive strategies to the students in the experimental group.In order to find out about how metacognitive strategies are applied in the students’ English grammar learning,the author has distributed among all the 80 students a questionnaire and interviewed 4 English teachers of the school.Besides,a pre-test of English grammar is conducted to the 80 students so that a comparison can be made with the post-test.The results of the questionnaire show that metacognitive strategies are not consciously used in English grammar learning in junior high schools.The results of the interviews show that junior high school English teachers have difficulties in guiding their students to use metacognitive strategies in their English grammar learning on account of the fact that they have received little specialized training of metacognitive strategies.The two tests have clearly different results,which shows that the students in the experimental group have made greater progress in grammar aspects than those in the controlled group.Based on the research question and the research results,the author proposes some suggestions in two aspects.English teachers of junio r high school should renew their notion of English grammar teaching and provide more useful language learning strategies for their students,especially metacognitive strategies.Junior high school students should use metacognitive strategies actively to enhance their efficiency of English learning.