This thesis consists of seven sections。 In section one, the writer gives a brief introduction of this thesis。 Grammar, including the origin, definition and characteristics of grammar, is explored in section two。 The purpose of this part is to make it clear that grammar plays an important role in language teaching。 The main body of the thesis is made up of four parts: the review of the role of grammar in language teaching, the debates of teaching grammar, the importance of teaching grammar and students attitudes towards the study of grammar。 Section three represents the role of grammar in four main language teaching methods。 In section four, instructors differ greatly in their opinions on the importance of grammar study in language teaching。 Section five describes the importance of grammar is also due to the fact that it is because of grammar of the language that makes it possible for us to talk about language。 The survey in section six shows that students believe that grammar is very important and necessary in their study。 The major findings, the limitation of the study and suggestions for future research are presented in the last section。

2。 Literature Review

Students know the term grammar well, but most of them seem to be ignorant of its origin, its definition, its characteristics and its debates; hence these are investigated in this section。 On the other side, it’s easy for us to explain what aspects of grammar should be instructed to Chinese high school students by discussing the origin, definition and characteristics。

2。1 The origin of the English grammar

The origin of the English word grammar can be dated back the Greek word graphein which implys to draw or write。 In this respect gramma was created to mean letter, as in an alphabetic letter。 Grammata is the plural form of this word that evolved at one time to signify the fundamentals of writing, and finally to mean the fundamentals of learning。 In the end being combined with techne, , the adjective form of the word grammatike implied the “art of knowing one’s letters” (Dykema 455)。 This Greek grammatik was borrowed into Latin as grammatical, the alteration of which became the old French word gramaire, of which in turn Middle English gramere was the offspring。 Up until now, we can see it clearly that grammar has been pertinent to letter or writing, even broad enough to be related to learning at times from the first day grammar was created。来*自-优=尔,论:文+网www.chuibin.com

2。2 The definitions of grammar

The authors of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language discuss that the word “grammar” has varieties of meanings and it means various things to different persons illustrating the issue from different viewpoints of language (Quirk et al。 12)。 Shu Dingfang summarizes and categorizes all the definitions of grammar from viewpoints of history and description (Shu 99-100) 。 

Speaking historically, grammar can be pided into two parts, prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar。 A prescriptive grammar displays principles about the structure of a language。 Different from a descriptive grammar, it handles what the grammarian thinks to be good or bad, right or wrong language use and doesn’t obey the rules which will result in incorrect language。 In fact, the way a descriptive grammar looks at a language is used by its speakers and then makes an attempt to analyse it and formulate principles about the structure。 Descriptive grammar doesn’t handle what is good or bad language use。 It regards structures and forms which may not be used by speakers of standard English as valid and included。 It is a grammar on the base of the way that a language actually is, instead of how people believes it should be。