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

譚玉潔

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 Ps 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 intake， which effectively facilitates the acquisition of implicit knowledge that is viewed as the ultimate goal of language learning. So， teachers should multiply the ways of explicit knowledge input so as to make a sound foundation for learners own mother language system before their comprehensible output.

Last but not the least， the explicit consciousness-raising task model can be regarded as a helpful pedagogy for English teachers. It takes form-focused instruction on grammar back into communicative language teaching classrooms， which coordinates the communicative tasks with the formal study of language features stressed by the traditional educational syllabus （Fotos 1994）. Therefore， it provides foreign language teachers with a fresh alternative to solve the headaches met in grammar teaching classrooms.

Bibliographies

[1] Fotos， S. Integrating grammar instruction and communicative language use through grammar consciousness-raising tasks [J]. TESOL Quarterly， 1994（28）.

[2] Schmidt， R.W. The role of consciousness in second language learning[J]. Applied Linguistics， 1990（11）.

[3] 戴煒棟， 任慶梅. 語法教學的新視角： 外顯意識增強式任務模式[J]. 外語界， 2006（01）.

（作者單位：湖北省宜昌市興山縣第一中學）