The objective of this paper is the English class at primary schools. Recently, in the primary school English class, most of the class teaching is based on teachers and books. Teachers always ignore the object of teaching, and they do not pay attention to how their students learn but how they teach. According to the situational teaching method, English teachers should put students as a center in the class and provide students some opportunities to speak English. In addition, we should encourage students to use the language to communicate with each other so as to improve their language communicative ability. Furthermore, we should incite students take a positive part in the class, communicating with their classmates in English. At the same time, we need to adopt the appropriate methodology to complete this paper.

   In this paper, we adopt case analysis method to study the application of the situational teaching method in primary schools. By using the case analysis method, we can solve some particular problems appearing in classes, making students participate in activities in classes and improving students’ abilities to analyze, judge and solve problems. By adopting the case analysis method, students are pided into three or four groups, and each includes eight to ten students, members of each group point out their own leaders. The teacher hands over the case material to students asking them to handle the content of material. Then, students discuss in their own groups and find the ways to solve the problems. At last, teacher selects the best one and concludes the whole class. What’s more, we could discuss the structure of this paper.    

This paper includes five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction, it includes the significance, methodology and objective of this paper. Chapter two is the present situation and existing problems of primary English teaching, telling about the present situation of English teaching at primary schools in China and the existing problems with the present primary school English teaching. Chapter three is the theoretical framework. Firstly, the author explains the definition of situational teaching method; secondly, the author analyzes the features of situational teaching method; thirdly, the author shows the teaching strategies of situational teaching method. Chapter four provides the application of situational teaching method in English class at primary schools. It includes the warm-up activities, employment of modern teaching equipment, demonstration of background information and students’ participation under teachers’ guidance. Chapter five is the conclusion.

II. The Present Situation and Existing Problems of Primary English Teaching

2.1 The Present Situation

  With the development of society and economy, especially reform and opening up to the outside world, our country need more talented person who boost the economy development. As a tool for communication, English should be put on an important position for us. As a compulsory course, English is opened in primary schools in China. At present, English classes have been set up in many primary schools. However, English classes have not been set up in some primary schools in urban and rural areas, the main reason is the shortage of teachers. Although some primary schools set English curriculum, the shortage of teachers can also causes the teaching burden of teachers. According to the survey, the average number of students is about 50 people in a class, some classes are up to 70—90, a teacher need work 16 to 20 hours per week, and some teachers even reached 22—24 hours per week. The heavy teaching workload make teachers are struggling to cope with the teaching so that they have no time and energy study the textbooks. In addition, due to advancing the course in some areas is too fast, it results in some unqualified teachers. The lacking of professional teaching towards oral expression ability, pronunciation, and monotonous teaching methods of teachers directly affects the students English learning enthusiasm and ability. There is no doubt that the teacher is the key point to improve the quality of primary school language curriculum. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate the professional development of English teachers in primary schools and use a variety of ways to enhance the effectiveness of training to strengthen the ability of training and the usage of English.