浅析语法教学策略

摘 要：在英语学习中，语言逻辑就是包括遵循它特有的语法知识。随着知识的逐步深入、难度的不断加深，一讲解抽象的语法时，学生就感到困惑。而在教学过程中，我们也会觉得语法教学很棘手，自觉教得再清楚仔细，简明扼要，学生真正掌握得却很少。如何有效的进行语法教学已成了热门的话题。本文介绍了几种主要的语法教授方法，并讨论了提高语法教学的多种有效策略。

关键字：语法； 教学策略； 归纳； 演绎

1. Introduction

Chinese students learn English in the Chinese schools with no English environments and special lessons to learn grammar which cannot be taught in class. Thus teaching grammar should never be disregarded. More necessary work should be done on the practice of English grammar rules so that students can freely use them to make sentences or dialogues， express their ideas in real communication and read English materials to enlarge their knowledge for the special purpose. The general aim of this paper is to unfold the resultful ways to improve teaching effect.

2. Strategies for grammar teaching

For highly effective study， useful strategies for grammar teaching are necessary. In this part， we are to discuss four points： 1） Grammar Practice； 2） Using pair work and group work； 3） Using games； 4） By means of Listening， speaking， reading and writing.

2.1 Grammar Practice

Practice is very important in learning process especially after presenting certain grammatical knowledge. It not only reviews and reinforces the students’ knowledge but also gives them chance to practice their speaking and helping them use the grammatical knowledge accurately in communication. For example， after the students have learned “were” from subjunctive， teacher may divide into pairs to use the structure “If I were you， I would …” to give advice after hearing the partners’ problem. Each pair had two different question sheets，The teacher can use imitation， transformation drills， substitution drills， response

2.2 Using Pair Work and Group Work

Cooperating with peers， students can work more effectively and lively. The two most frequently used ways are using pair work and group work.

2.2.1 Pair Work

Pair work proves to be a very good and satisfied idea for class activities and management. Pair work allows the students to use language and also encourages students’ cooperation which is itself important for the atmosphere of the class and for the motivation it gives to learning with others（曾宪红，1994：13）. For example， instead of giving answers directly to the grammatical practice， teachers may divide students into pairs to discuss the best answers. By doing so， the students get involved in it. They must think about it and discuss it with their partners. When they finally find their solutions， they also practice their speaking at the same time. This is just like the old saying： “killing two birds with one stone.”

2.2.2 Group Work

Compared with pair work， group work seems to be more attractive in a grammar class. Students in groups could have more persons to discuss with and more talking time， also there could be more ideas and thoughts（曾宪红，1994：14）. It will be exciting， lively and dynamic if the teacher gives a well-designed task. Harmer suggests， students will be taught and learning in the group exhibiting a degree of self-reliance that simply is not possible when the teacher is acting as a controller. A case in point is the activity “fortune-telling”.

Purpose： predicting future events， using “will” and “be going to”

Procedure：

Group work

The learners need not know each other well. People love having their fortunes told， even if the prediction is clearly without any foundation. There are a number of ways of organizing this activity. Essentially， however， each learner writes a fortune for someone else.

One version goes as follow： in a group of four or five， each learner writes a fortune or prediction for others. In other words， each learner will write four or five fortunes. Then， in turn， each learner is given all his＼her fortunes. He ＼she must read them out and comment， for example， on whether some of them are the same， or just what he＼she had hoped for， or highly unlikely. （卢凌，吴永泉，Activities & Tasks：71）

2.3 Using Games

Using game is another strategy worth trying in grammar teaching class. When in a game， the students have to take individual responsibility for what they think the grammar is about， the teacher is free to find out what the students actually know， without being the focus of students’ attention and everybody is working at once. With more students’ talk and less teachers’ talk. The atmosphere in the classroom is related and lively. Students produce free and natural language with no teacher intervention. Games can be used before presenting a given structure area to find out how much knowledge of the area is already disjointedly present in the group or after a grammar presentation to see how much the group have grasped or as revision of a grammar area. When to use game mainly depends on classroom atmosphere and the topic to be dealt with. For example， after introduction the unreal conditional clauses and having students deduce the rules from the example sentences， teacher may ask the students to play a game called “chain of Events， ” the teacher gives the class one “if-clause” e.g.

If I were to live in another country. Then student A completes the sentence by saying：

A： If I were to live in another country， I would live in France.

Student B takes the second of A’s sentence and reforms it into an if-clause and suggest a further result：

B： If I live in France， I would visit the Louver.

Then next students carry it on in the same way.

C： If I visited the Louver， I would take a lot of photos.

D： If I took…

Another example is “Finding the owner”：

The game is used in the teaching of possessive adjective and possessive pronoun.

Procedure：

1） let students hand in their things at hand to the teaching desk；

2） invite students hand out the things to the students irregularly， the teacher does first：

T： Now， look. What‘s this？

Ss： A pencil

T： Yes， this is a pencil. But whose is it？ Tom， is it yours？

Tom： No， it is not mine. I think it is Jim’s.

T： Is it yours， Jim？

Jim： Yes， it is mine.

T： Here you are.

Jim： Thank you， Ms. Chen.

3） Students come and take a thing to find its owner in turn. Each student should take a thing a time to ensure all have the chance to help the material find its owner. The games will be continued until every student has a chance to speak and practice. Some other games will include： Coffee-potting， I spy， if it happened etc. And these games prove to be wonderful in a grammar course. （王笃琴，英语教学策略论：169）

2.4 By Means of Listening， Speaking， Reading and Writing.

In our traditional grammar teaching， the teaching always uses the mechanical practice. That’s a little boring to students. So the teacher should set up a method according to the communicative function.

2.4.1 Teaching grammar with listening speaking， reading and writing .

For eample， teaching “the Future tense”. It concords with plan， so the teacher should set up a situation and the subject which students are interested in to design the activity with listening， speaking， reading and writing. First， listen to the dialogue：

A： What will you do tomorrow？

B： I will see my brother off at the bus station tomorrow morning.

A： Then will you do anything special tomorrow afternoon？

B： Maybe not， I will stay at home and watch TV.

A： I will go shopping with Mary， would you like to go with us？

A： Great！

After listen to the dialogue， the teacher should ask the students to carry out the activity task.

Step1： Two students in a group to make a short dialogue imitating the dialogue just heard. There should be at least five Future tense sentences.

Step2： four to six students in a group to practice the short dialogue which they just made.

Step3： Choose the best pair and help them to modify the dialogue. Preparing to give a performance in the class.

Step4： Ask the students to perform their dialogue， at the same time， require the other group to take notes what they hear.

Step5： The teacher give a comment according to the group wrote down more accurate， also they could repeat what hear.

2.4.2 Teaching grammar through the interaction of feedback.

What’s interaction of feedback？ It means during the teaching the cooperative of repeat clarification check and confirm， through the interaction of feedback the students could realize their mistakes， and improve their English. Look at the example：

S：I Lose my book yesterday.

T： You lost your book yesterday？

S： Yeah， I lost my book yesterday.

In this dialogue， The student made a grammar mistake， In order to go on the dialogue， The teacher didn’t point out the mistake at once， but ask back the student， so the student realized himself made a mistake.

2.4.3 classical sentence which includes certain grammar structure

Some of them are listed below：

The more， the better.

Time is money.

To see is to believe.

Never too old to learn.

Actions speak louder than words.

Where there is a will， there is a way.

Nothing is difficult， if you put your heart in.

Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom

Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.

3. Conclusion

A good knowledge of English grammar will do no harm to the mastery of English. On the contrary， it is helpful and necessary. To be a English teacher， one should pay attention to the way he used to presenting grammatical items. For grammar is an important part of English teaching， one can neither disregarded it nor overestimated it， but apply vary kinds of strategies to help students effectively grasp the plain grammatical rules. After study， in English grammar teaching， grammatical practice， especially the mechanical practice； pair work and group work； using games are the four most creative and challengeable grammar teaching strategies in the new studying environment. They are all useful to the advancement of students’ English level and to activate classroom dynamics.

Bibliography

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