Nowadays, as an advanced teaching method, the Situational Teaching Method overturns dated teaching method and is being prevalent in Chinese English teaching gradually。 In primary school, Situational Teaching Method has an irreplaceable position that it is an innovation in English teaching。

Beyond all question, Situational Teaching Method has many advantages。 As we all know that primary school students are good at keeping concrete knowledge in mind instead of understanding the abstract knowledge。 So we can come to the conclusion that Situational Teaching Method is settled for students to learn a foreign language, especially for the primary school students。 Placing themselves in full language environment, students are able to development communicative competence more effectively。 The Situational Teaching Method is a good way to provide students with the authentic language environment。 The study, focusing on the Situational Teaching Method theory and communicative competence meanings, explores how to create effective situations and how to use Situational Teaching Method to cultivate primary school students’ communicative competence。 

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Situational Teaching Method

In 1989, Brown, Collin and Duguid came up with the concept of the Situational Teaching Method for the first time。 They held the pinion that “nothing can independently exist, including language。 Breaking away from given environment, language itself is meaningless。 Only used in the specific environment, can it is significative。 Therefore, the most effective method to learn language is applying it to the given environment。” (Brown。J。S, Collin。 A & Duguid。P。 18)。 

The Situational Teaching Method means that in the teaching process, teachers purposefully introduce or create some certain vivid and concrete scenes to arouse students’ certain emotional experience, thus it will help students understand the teaching material and promote their ability of learning language in situational environment(王鉴等 19)。

Listening and speaking skills take an advantage over reading and writing skills in the process of the situational language teaching where English teaching and emotional regulation are combined。 According to their real life, the Situational Teaching Method facilitates students’ active participation in the class, so that they can master useful expression in practice。

2。2 Communicative competence

2。2。1 The definition of communicative competence

In 1972, Hymes first proposed communicative competence, which further expanded Chomsky’s linguistic competence。 Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user’s grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and like, as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately（Hymes 45）。 In other words, communicative competence refers to ability that uses appropriate conversational skills and communication strategies for interpersonal communication depending on the communicative context, object, subject and purpose。 论文网

2。2。2 The factors of influencing communicative competence

The first one is environment factor。 Communication is the process of exchanging information, thoughts and feelings that happens in real situation。 While our English teaching carried out in the class is artificially created by teachers。 Compared with authentic communicative drill, class teaching lacks real natural communicative situation。 Therefore, to cultivate students’ communicative competence efficiently, teachers must create authentic situations in the class as best as they can。                     

The second factor is culture difference。 As a tool of communication, language must be presented in certain social and cultural background, and subject to the constraints of this culture。 To communicate reasonably and flexibly in English, it is necessary to understand the cultural traditions and customs of Anglo-Saxon countries（陈丽春 87）。 For example, in China, if someone says “your dress is so nice”, Chinese people usually answer “I’m flattered”, while foreigners are back “Thank you”, which is more influenced by two cultures。 Chinese people's response shows their modesty; but foreigners are puzzled about the answer。 So during the process of cultivate students’ communicative competence, culture difference should be taken into account。