Vivian Cook suggests that knowledge of grammar is considered by many linguists to be the central area of the language system around which the other areas such as pronunciation and vocabulary revolve. No matter how important the other components of language may be, they are connected to each other through grammar. (Cook 18) S. Thornbury says, in the book How to Teach Grammar, that grammar can be taught by teaching lexical. The teaching of lexical is also called as natural grammar. Some scholars deem that most popular words in English have a close connection to common sentence patterns. Larsen-Freeman puts forward the concept of grammar dimensions. Freeman points out that learning grammar also requires learner’s productive skills, not only the knowledge of language structure. The successful grammar teaching, grammatical knowledge should be put in meaningful context and  in service for communication.

However, these theories of teaching English grammar are against the background that English is the first language. Native speakers are more affected by the communicative environment. Chinese students learn English in a different environment and at the same time are suffered from the negative transfer from our mother tongue. Thus, we can’t blindly believe in foreign research results. We must explore the approaches adaptable to Chinese English learners.来!自~优尔论-文|网www.youerw.com

Compared with the western countries, the research about English grammar teaching in China started relatively late but Chinese linguists and teachers still made fundamental achievements. Wen Weijuan (Wen 18) made a comparison of task-based language teaching approach and grammar-translation method. She concluded that TBLT has an advantage over the latter on the teaching of subjunctive mood. Huang Hebin thought that grammar teaching can be carried out in different lessons such as reading and listening. An Meihua suggested that the reform of English grammar teaching should start from the reform of teaching approaches. They advocated to use communicative language teaching approach in teaching English grammar.