The Effectiveness of the Teaching of English Grammar as a Foreign Language through the Integration of Form, Meaning and Use

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Date

2008-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to see whether or not teaching grammar through the integration of form, meaning and use is effective and functional. To this end, the totals of 60 students were randomly selected from two sections of grade nine. Thirty of them formed the study group and the remaining thirty students assigned to form the control group. Then, the pretest was given for both groups to measure whether there was significant difference between previous language performances of the sample students. Accordingly, the pretest result showed there was no statistically significant difference between the language performance levels of the two groups. Following the pretest results, the study group and the control group were taught two grammar items (simple past and present perfect) through the integrated grammar teaching approach and the structural approach respectively. Ultimately, a communicative grammar posttest, after eight weeks training, was conducted for both groups. Descriptive statistics and independent samples t-test were used to compute and analyze the posttest results of the two groups. And the results revealed that the study group outperformed the control group significantly (p<0.05). Thus, the null hypothesis that there would not be any significant difference between the effectiveness of the methods of grammar teaching used in the study and the control group is rejected. Instead, the alternate hypothesis is drawn for conclusion in that teaching grammar by integrating form, meaning and use is effective. The findings of this research go in consistent with other findings such as Hailom (1982) Gebremedhin (1984) and Geremew (1994).

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Keywords

Teaching of English Grammar

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