Effects of Communicative Language Teaching on English Learning and Cultural Learning for Children

• Main Authors: Hwey-rong Lin, 林蕙蓉
• Other Authors: 張酒雄
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/03383435618783560572

博士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 教育學系 === 90 === Effects of Communicative Language Teaching on English Learning and Cultural Learning for Children ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of communicative language teaching on English learning and cultural learning for children. The specific focuses in this research are: 1. To collect and explore related literature, and then to introduce the notion and plans of communicative language teaching in English courses in elementary school. 2. To introduce the methods and effects of communicative language teaching on English learning and cultural learning for children in elementary school. 3. To compare the teaching plans of communicative language teaching and audio-lingual methods and to find out the immediate effects of those two different methods on cultural learning, learning motivation, teacher-and-student interaction, and classroom climate. 4. To explore the teaching plans of communicative language teaching and audio-lingual methods, and to find out the retention effects of those two different methods on cultural learning, learning motivation, teacher-and-student interaction, and classroom climate. 5. To understand the viewpoints of teachers in elementary school in terms of communicative language teaching and audio-lingual methods. 6. To offer suggestions for teachers, education authorities, English teaching trainers and English instructional researchers on the basis of the findings of this research. The methods adopted in this research were experimental teaching and interview. The subjects of this research were two classes of students who were in the sixth grade in Accessory Experimental Elementary School of National Tainan Teachers College. The research instruments which were designed by the researcher including: (a) English Learning and Cultural Learning Achievement Tests for the children in the sixth-grade in the elementary school. (b) Questionnaires on Children’s Attitudes Toward English and Cultural Learning. (c) Questionnaires on Children’s Attitudes Toward English Teaching in the Project. (d) Semi-structured Interview Questionnaires for Children. (e) Semi-structured Interview Questionnaires for Teachers. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics of frequency distribution, percentage, and the one-factor analysis of covariance of independent sample. As well, rationalistic inquiry was adopted in a qualitative analysis. The conclusions of this research are: 1. Students’ likes and dislikes of cultural festivals are not much influenced by different teaching methods. 2. Communicative language teaching shows significant effects on the children’s conceptions of Chinese and American festivals. 3. Communicative language teaching shows significant effects on the children’s listening, speaking, and reading achievements in the aspects of English learning and cultural learning. 4. Communicative language teaching has partially significant effects on learning motivation in the aspects of English learning and cultural learning. 5. Communicative language teaching has partially significant effects on classroom climate in the aspects of English learning and cultural learning. 6. The children in this research thought that communicative language teaching was a good English teaching method because it discarded the traditional one-way lecture mode. 7. The classroom activities that the children were most interested in include (a) group games and singing, (b) group competition, (c) group discussions, (d) getting reward cards, and (e) individual competition. 8. The classroom activities that the children were least interested in include (a) paper tests, and (b) teacher’s one-way lecture. 9. The teaching activities that the children tended to emphasized include (a) conversation teaching, (b) story teaching, (c) song teaching, and (d) vocabulary teaching. 10. The reasons why the children like the experimental English teaching materials were as follows: (a) The content of those books were so interesting that the children could understand Chinese and American culture and festivals. (b) Teachers told festival stories in English and supplied with colorful pictures at proper time. (c) Interesting activities were done in the content area of the selected festivals teaching materials, and they helped clarify the children’s puzzles in the differences between Chinese and American festivals. 11. The teachers’ suggestions for helping improve English learning for children include (a) group teaching by learning ability of students, (b) enhancing student-and-student interaction, (c) repetition of singing practice, (d) using more games, group competitions, and group discussions to arouse students’ learning interest and to improve their listening, speaking, reading, writing skills. 12. The other teachers’ assistance contributed a lot in the implementation of English teaching, and cultural teaching. Based on the above conclusion, four suggestions were made for further research. A. For elementary school teachers: (a) They may use the reading materials about culture and custom of festivals, and develop reading habits for both parents and children. (b) They may think highly of the evaluation of the learning process and learning attitude to intensify the learning motivation for children. (c) They may apply cooperative learning activities in student groups to enhance teacher and student interaction, and make students enjoy their companionship. B. For school authorities: (a) They may think highly the important role of teachers in collaborative instruction. (b) They may hold more conferences on communicative language teaching for teachers and they may encourage teachers to take more in-service training. (c) They may emphasize the application of methods and materials related to culture in English teaching. C. For English teacher trainers: (a) They may arrange communicative language teaching curricula for pre-service English teachers of elementary school. (b) They may help English teachers adopt the eclectic teaching methods with the focus on communicative language teaching. (c) They may offer teachers more study programs in the field of communicative language teaching. D. For English instructional researchers: (a)They may focus on students’ learning attitude and parent-and-children co-learning in order to find out the influence resulted from different teaching practice. (b)They may choose appropriate samples and use the action research method to investigate teaching in person. (c)They may choose different study focuses, such as teacher-and-student interaction, students’ behavior, oral conversation, and role play, to do further study in order to get a better understanding of teaching English to children. (d)They may enlarge the subject population at all grades of both public and private elementary schools to make a more extensive and general comparison in the study of children’s English learning and cultural learning.