Effect Of Different Sequence Of Explicit And Implicit Instruction In The Integrated Grammar Instruction

The importance of English grammar teaching has been accepted gradually in EFL countries,they can be categorized into explicit grammar instruction and implicit grammar instruction.In explicit grammar instruction,the teacher teaches grammar rules explicitly,and students learn grammar rules by rote learning and drilling.While in implicit instruction,grammar rules are induced by students themselves in meaningful contexts.Due to the unavoidable shortcomings of both methods,many researchers have put forward the idea of integrating explicit and implicit grammar instruction.Although there have been some empirical studies in the integration of explicit and implicit instruction,few domestic empirical studies paying attention to the sequence of explicit and implicit grammar instruction have been carried out.Therefore,this study aims to make it clear:(1)On the teaching of attributive clause in junior high school,which type of grammar instruction has superior efficiency between these two methods:explicit instruction precedes implicit grammar instruction or put implicit instruction ahead of explicit grammar instruction in the integrated grammar instruction?(2)Which method can contribute to students'acquisition of the target structure in a long run?(3)Which kind of method can better arouse students'interest and improve their confidence in grammar learning?This thesis is written based on Krashen's "Acquisition-learning Hypothesis'and Schmidt's'Noticing Hypothesis'.The experiment was conducted in two parallel classes of junior three students from a school in Xi'an.The number of students in these two classes were almost the same,and the ratio of male students and female students is close.The two classes were randomly defined as Experimental Group(EG),and the Control Group(CG),who both received the integration of explicit and implicit grammar instruction.EG was given explicit instruction firstly,and then implicit grammar instruction;while CG had the opposite sequence in the integrated grammar instruction.They were both taught attributive clause as their teaching content.Participants from two groups received same grammar tests before the experiment,the results suggested they were at the same level of language proficiency in attributive clause.Post-test 1,post-test 2 and delay-post-test were carried out during the experiment,the results of which were used to make a comparison of the teaching efficacy of these two teaching approaches and their effectiveness on keeping students' acquisition of the target structure in a long run.What's more,an interview was organized for some randomly chosen students from different proficiency groups in EG and CG after post-test 2,in order to find out the influence that these two teaching methods on students' attitudes towards grammar learning.The results of grammar tests reveal that applying explicit instruction first in the integrated grammar instruction is significantly more efficient than the other;the effectiveness of putting explicit firstly in the integrated grammar instruction on keeping results of acquisition of target structure is also strongly significant.The results of the interview suggest that this method can better arouse students' interest and improve their confidence.The present study was conducted in the hope of offering some implications to practical English grammar teaching in junior high schools.