An Empirical Research Of English Grammar Teaching Based On Discovery Theory In Junior High School

As is known to all,English grammar teaching is very significant for English learning.However,the current grammar teaching situation in Junior High Schools is far from satisfactory.Teachers usually teach grammar through explaining grammar rules and providing a great amount of exercises,which makes grammar leaning dull and boring and leads to the ineffectiveness of grammar leaning.In order to avoid the difficult situation,the author tries a new grammar teaching approach based on Discovery Theory and does an experiment to promote the effectiveness of grammar teaching.In this empirical research,the following three research questions are to be addressed:1.What is the current situation of students' grammar learning attitudes,motivation and strategies?2.To what extent can the grammar teaching based on Discovery Theory change students grammar learning attitudes,motivation and strategies?3.Compared with the general grammar teaching approach(3Ps),can the grammar teaching approach based on Discovery Theory promote grammar learning effectively?The research involves two classes of Junior One in one junior high school in Xuzhou.And the students in the two classes are in the similar level of English learning.One class is as the experimental class,adopting the grammar teaching approach based on Discovery Theory,and the other class is as the controlled class,using the 3Ps model(presentation,practice and production)to teach grammar.The teaching content is the grammar part in the 8 units in the first English Book of Grade 7,published by Yilin Press.Before the experiment,the author investigates the current grammar learning situation of the two classes first.Then the experiment lasting a semester starts.After the classroom teaching period,the two class are tested to check their learning effect.At last,the students in the experimental class are investigated by post-questionnaires.Through analyzing all the results of the research,the following conclusions are made: 1)There exits some problems in students' grammar learning attitudes,motivation and strategies in the experimental school,such as that they are not interested in grammar learning,they lack internal motivation and their learning strategies are notvarious enough and so on;2)Students in the experimental class have changed in their grammar learning attitudes,motivation and strategies after the experiment to some extent: more than half of the students increase their interest in grammar learning and feel confident in grammar learning,almost half of the students start to feel easier to learn grammar,and most of the students start to have internal motivation in grammar learning and most of them can adopt more useful ways to learn grammar,such as summarizing the learnt grammar,reflecting more on their grammar learning and so on;3)After the experiment,the average scores in experimental class and in controlled class are compared and according to the analysis of SPSS 19.0,there exits significant difference between the scores of experimental class and controlled class.Therefore,compared with the 3Ps model,this grammar teaching approach based on Discovery Theory can promote students grammar learning effectively.Meanwhile,this grammar teaching approach is welcomed by the students and it can also improve their thinking ability and increase their grammar learning efficiency to some extent.In a word,the grammar teaching approach based on Discovery Theory which is carried out in Junior High School is feasible and effective.