1992 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
An Empirical Research on the Methodology and Effects of the Communicative Approach
| Project/Area Number |
03610137
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Educaion
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| Research Institution | Keio University |
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Principal Investigator |
NAMIKI Hiroshi Keio University, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (30051311)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ANDO Juko Keio University, Permanent Lecturer, 文学部, 専任講師 (30193105)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1991 – 1992
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| Keywords | English teaching method / the Communicative Approach / Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) / the Grammatical Approach |
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of the present study is to clarify the methodological feature of the Communicative Approach (CA) through long-term instructional experiments at the elementary level of English education. To attain this purpose, CA was compared with Grammatical Approach (GA), which is Japanese traditional teaching method.
In the first year, sixty-nine sixth graders was taught by means of both CA and GA through 10 months, twice a week. Significant main effect of teaching method was found ; GA was better in written test and CA was better in oral test. CA capitalize on and GA compensates for fluid ability, and CA compensates for and GA capitalizes on acquired English knowledge. Although these ATI patterns were the reverse of the initial results , they kept stable through this experimental period. From the motivational point of view, change of students' learning motivation facilitated in CA brought about their achievement, although in GA there was no such motivational mediation.
In the second year, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment l, comparison between CA and GA as well as examination of the AET(Assistant English Teacher) effect were done by 160 fifth graders. In Experiment 2, pure CA was compared with CA with rule instruction. The same results as our previous studies were replicated.
These results are not only practically but also theoretically interesting because they shed light on the long-term feature of CA in terms of learners' aptitudes, and showed that the aptitude structure changes through learning process and can be stable to some extent.
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