This study tried to find out which teaching method is more effective for teaching vocabulary by comparing grammar-translation method(one of the traditional teaching methods) and task-based language teaching, which is recently preferred as a kind of co...
This study tried to find out which teaching method is more effective for teaching vocabulary by comparing grammar-translation method(one of the traditional teaching methods) and task-based language teaching, which is recently preferred as a kind of communication-based method.
In this study, 99 secondary school students participated. Of these, 26 attended C middle school, and the remaining 73 students attended D middle school, where they participated in two different practical classes.
The research class was divided into a control group and an experimental group in May 2008, and continued during 3 periods. The students in the control group were taught through grammar-translation method and the students in the experimental group learned under task-based language teaching. Before this research was conducted, all participants were given a diagnoses test. Students, who already knew the targeted expressions or had lived in any English-speaking country, were excluded from this study. After the 3rd period research class, all students from the control or experimental group were given a formative test.
The data obtained from the diagnostic and formative tests were then analysed. The results of the current study were as follows:
First, in terms of vocabulary knowledge, no statistical difference was found between the two groups who received two different teaching methods: grammar-translation method and task-based language teaching.
Second, of the top 20% of the students, those who received a grammar-translation method performed higher on the vocabulary test than those who received a task-based language teaching. On the other hand, of the bottom 20% of the students, those who received a task-based language teaching performed better on the vocabulary test than those who received a grammar-translation method.
Finally, no statistical difference was observed among the average students who participated in the current study.
In short, for the whole class there was no statistical difference in this study. As discussed above, however, each group showed a favorite teaching method when learning new vocabulary. Thus, findings of the current study suggest that English teachers need to choose an appropriate teaching method depending on the students' various needs and different levels of proficiency. Thus, English teachers should try to find a more effective teaching method for the various students they teach.