The Effect of Grammar Teaching on Writing in China

蔡建平

Abstract： Teaching and learning English in China is a rather daunting task. Learners English speaking and listening skills are known to be unsatisfactory， but their writing and reading proficiency are far from being that optimistic， especially writing. Even at the college level， students lack the ability to consistently form complete sentences or to make pronouns agree with their referents. What should be reconsidered is the actual grammatical competence of non-English majors of college students. This paper， targeting at exploring the effect of grammar teaching on college students writing proficiency and laying out a number of guidelines for the inclusion of grammar teaching in college English teaching in China， is aimed at addressing the following four questions：

1.Why is continuous grammar instruction still necessary at college？

2.Does grammar teaching in college help to improve students writing proficiency？

3.What strategies can teachers use to teach grammar in the context of writing？

Key words： grammar teaching， writing， effect， strategies

1. Background

Since the mid-1970s， the Communicative Language Teaching approach has developed into a main and dominant way in English Language Teaching， which is under the influence of sociolinguistics and the belief that communicative competence consisted of more than grammatical competence. In order to achieve the objective of communication， the communicative syllabus was normally organized according to meaning-based， rather than grammatical， objectives， so what highlighted in language classrooms was a “grammar-free” or “anti-grammar” methodology. Error correction was considered as being secondary in importance to communication.

The CLT Method was not found to be very satisfactory in the 1990s. Linguistic accuracy was sacrificed even though learners could speak fluently. From then on， many researchers have been exploring different approaches to grammar teaching.

2. Why is continuous grammar instruction still necessary at college？

College English Curriculum Requirements specifies basic writing requirements as follows： “Students should be able to complete writing tasks for general purposes， e.g.， describing personal experiences， impressions， feelings， or some events， and to undertake practical writing. They should be able to write within 30 minutes a short composition of no less than 120 words on a general topic， or an outline. The composition should be basically complete in content， clear in main idea， appropriate in diction and coherent in discourse. Students are expected to be able to have a command of basic writing strategies.”