A COMPARISONING STUDY BETWEEN THE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION AND COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH (CLT) IN TENSE USAGE FOR 1ST YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF SOUTHEAST BANGKOK COLLEGE
Abstract:
The objective of this study is to determine which teaching approaches between Communicative approach and the Grammar Translation method provides better learning development, by concluding an actual experiment among two groups of 1st year vocational students simultaneously conducted and taught by the two different approaches respectively under the common topic concerning the usage of The Simple Present Tense, The Past tense and The Present Continuous Tense for Future. Comparison of post achievement examination and the result difference provide data which form the basis for statistical evaluation.
The respondents for this study comprise of eighty 1st year undergraduate students (of Southeast Bangkok College) who were randomly picked and assigned into two groups (experimental group and control group) of 40 each. The experimental group and the control group were taught by the Communicative approach and the Grammar Translation method respectively. The time-frame used in teaching each group was 21 periods (1.5 periods per week, 60 minutes per period). The research instruments were composed of 1) two different lesson plans between the experimental group and the control group 2) pre-test and post-test with reliability value = 0.8015 and validity value of most of the items of the achievement test are more than 0.5. The scores were analyzed by using SPSS-X program (Statistical Package for the Social Science, Version X).
It was found that 1st year undergraduate students (N=40) who were taught by the Communicative approach achieved significantly higher post-test scores of Simple Present Tense usage, Past Tense usage and Present Continuous Tense for Future usage than 1st year undergraduate students (N=40) who were taught by the Grammar Translation method [sig.(2-tailed) =.001, so sig.(1-tailed) = .001 < 0.05. It can be conclude that the Communicative approach provided significantly higher achievement in the usage of Simple Present Tense, Past Tense and Present Continuous Tense for Future than the Grammar Translation Method did.