The Application of Explicit Consciousness―Raising Task Model to Grammar Teaching in Senior Middle Schools in China.docVIP

The Application of Explicit Consciousness―Raising Task Model to Grammar Teaching in Senior Middle Schools in China 　　The explicit consciousness-raising task model refers to the instructional strategies employed in communicative-oriented activities to draw learners attention to the form of the target language and to encourage learners to conclude their own explicit grammatical norms from the data they are offered. The present study applies the explicit consciousness-raising task model to grammar teaching in a senior middle school in order to testify its feasibility and effectiveness in the practical teaching process. The present study employed the “pre-test―experiment―post-test” quasi-experiment， along with the questionnaires as a supplementary means. Two ready-made classes of Grade One were selected as the Experimental Group and the Control Group respectively. The Experimental Group accepted the explicit consciousness-raising task model while the Control Group received the Three P’s model. A pre-test， a post-test and questionnaires were adopted during the eight weeks empirical study. The target grammatical structure selected in this study was English attributive clause， for the attributive clause is usually regarded as a special difficulty to Chinese learners who are always confused about its usage. Some implications can be concluded from the results of the present study： First of all， consciousness plays an important role in foreign language teaching， just as Schmidt （1990：129） argues that “noticing is the necessary and sufficient condition for the conversion of input to intake”. The present study has verified this statement. Therefore， Consciousness-Raising tasks should be widely used by English teachers in order to promote learners awareness of the target language input. Secondly， explicit grammar instruction is a must in foreign language teaching. The establishment and development of explicit knowledge greatly speed up the conversion from input to in