A Practical Teaching Study on the Improvement of Grammar—Translation Method

【Abstract】In China， it can be found English teaching is merely for tests and college examination. All the teaching activities are Test-oriented. As time went， for the senior school students， they still cant communicate in English efficiently， and even are too nervous to open their mouths. To solve this problem， the author tries to make good use of advantages of Grammar-Translation（GT） Method and Communicative Approach（CA）. In this paper， it gives some description of practical teaching to prove the possibility of combination the GT Method with CA to improve communcative competence.

【key words】Grammar-Translation Method； Communicative Approach teaching practice； practical teaching communcative competence

【作者簡介】尚厚玉，貴州醫科大學神奇民族醫藥學院。

The author did teaching practice in Changshun Middle School. All the teaching activities are Test-oriented. The teaching method is invariably Grammar-Translation（GT） dominated. Few activities， dull classroom atmosphere in class， teachers concern of students affection factors is too little. Therefore the author did some practical teaching to prove the possibility of combination the GT Method with CA to improve communcative competence. 60 students of class 6 in Grade one in Changshun senior high school were chosen to do this experiment.

In this experiment the author used the equipments at hand such as tape-recorder， teaching cards and pictures. The textbook is Senior English for China Students Book （Book One）. The basic purpose of teaching is to create lively classroom atmosphere， to encourage student to speak loud， and not to neglect grammar principles. So the classes were arranged by following steps：

1. Pre-reading： After greeting and revisions， according to the text， the teacher would supply some background information. For the passage named “Opreh Winphrey”， the teacher found some materials about the successful men to read to the class. Then she played the tape-recorder and required the students to read new words aloud which they previewed ahead of class time. After this， the teacher organized the discussion about the topic “what qualities should have for a successful person？”

2. While-reading：After the discussion， the teacher asked the students to scan the text and get the general ideas with the teachers help. Before reading， the teachers would give some questions to help the students understand the passage. When finishing reading， the students would find the answer to the questions and the teacher explained the difficult sentences and language points.

3. Post-reading： After finishing text， the teachers divided the class into several groups to make dialogues， stories， even plays with given topics. For the passage named “Opreh Winphrey”， the teacher gave the topic and asked students to discuss. The topic was about “what do you want to do if you want to be a successful person？” The students must use the new words and expressions as many as possible. Then the students presented their own ideas in front of the class， when necessary Chinese is allowed. Then the teacher helped them express their ideas in English. The teacher would give the students the chances to speak as many as possible. After the performance the teacher would analyze some obvious grammar mistakes and explain the important grammar points. At last， the teacher would give some homework to review the days lessons.

In the class， the teacher walked around the classroom to observe the students and help them solve the problems met in the reading at any time. The teacher spoke more simple English and less Chinese， and tried her best to control teachers amount of talk to let the students practice more. By listening to the tape and other students speaking， the students listening ability would be trained. By showing themselves on the stage their confidence would be trained. Gradually the teacher knew every students characteristics and made detailed notes. The teacher paid more attention to the students who knew the answers but were not brave to speak loud， at this time， the teacher always used the proper words to encourage them， and gave them enough time to speak. In the whole teaching process， the teacher made good use of the merits of CA and GT Method. Meanwhile， she tried her best to create the lively atmosphere without more modern equipments. What deserved to be mentioned is that teachers not only teach knowledge but also concern students affection factors and their learning methods， to establish a harmonious relationship between students and teachers.

According to the interview after teaching， 78% of the students got satisfying results. From their starting points， they rebuilt their self-confidence to study English， hoping the teachers give certain help as their friends. It is not difficult to find the CA does work well with the GT Method.