Situational teaching approach originated in the West。 It generally refers to the teaching process during which teachers introduce or create some scenes purposely that are emotional and vivid, so as to help students understand the teaching contents better。 At present, many teachers may even not know or understand this teaching method, let alone to apply it in English class。 Even if used by some teachers, there are still many problems。 For instance, teachers didn’t create suitable situations。 Teachers didn’t fully study students’ conditions。 Teachers didn’t fully use the teaching resources when applying this method, etc。 论文网

My study mainly focuses on making the best use of situational teaching approach to promote the reform of primary-school English instruction。 It consists of several parts。 First part is about the introduction of the whole paper。 Second part mainly discusses the long history of situational teaching, theoretical basis about it, features and principles of the situational teaching, different definitions of it and the present research about situational teaching approach。 Third part talks about the current situation of English learning and teaching in primary school which includes characteristics of primary school students’ English learning and some problems of primary school English teaching。 Fourth part focuses on different approaches to applying or improving the situational teaching method in primary school, which is also the most important part of my thesis。 Last part is the conclusion。

2。 Literature Review 

2。1 The long history of situational teaching 文献综述

In foreign countries, situational teaching has a long history。 It can be traced back to the Socrates period。 In order to impart knowledge better and achieve the purpose of moral education, Socrates through long-term teaching practice formed a unique teaching method。 People at that time called it the Socrates method, but he himself called it the production of women。 In the process of teaching, Socrates first asked questions, but did not directly tell the answer to the students, he allowed students to give their own answers, then repeatedly questioned students and thus guided students step by step to come to the correct conclusion, which can be seen as the seed of situational teaching method。 (Feng 3)

 The advent of Comenius’ book the great teaching theory is considered to be a sign of the birth of modern teaching theory (Feng 4)。 In his book, there is the thought of situational teaching。 Comenius wrote that the learning of all kinds of knowledge is from the sensibility, which can make the abstract knowledge to be concrete, visualized and contribute to the formation of students’ perceptual knowledge。 Situational teaching can make students immersive, so that students can achieve abstract rational epiphany from the image of perception。 While stimulating students’ learning interests, teaching activities can become students’ own, active and conscious learning activities。 

     The usage and creation of situations in the United States has been further developed by the American educator Dewey。 From the pragmatism theory of experience and functional psychology, he criticized the traditional education methods and put forward his own points, namely, “learning by doing”, “learning by activities” and “learning by experience”, which link school knowledge and life activities。

     In a nutshell, the study of situational teaching in the West is based on the study of situational awareness and situational learning。 Since the mid-1980s, situational teaching has been developed and perfected by the theoretical research about situational awareness and situational learning。