Comparative Study of the Effect of Inductive Versus Deductive Grammar Instruction on Students' Comprehension of English Verb Tenses: Grade Nine in Focus
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Date
2013-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
While there is generally great controversy over how a target language is
taught in the contemporary language classrooms, the question arises
as to what type of grammar instruction is deemed effective is inevitable.
The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine whether inductive
grammar instruction is more effective than deductive one in enabling
students to comprehend the English verb tenses. To this end,
experimental research design was used, and it was conducted during
second semester of 2013 academic year. The subjects of the study were 64 grade nine students of Higher 12
Secondary School which was chosen out of five High Schools in YekaSub-
city via convenient sampling technique. The subjects of the study
were put in to two groups: the experimental group and the control
group. The former was taught 5 English verb tenses with inductive
approach, whereas the latter was administered the same items like the
experimental group but subjected to deductive approach. As for research instruments, three devices were mainly employed: the
inductive approach treatment designed in the form of lesson plans for
the experimental group, pre-test and post-test which both consisted of
20 items of multiple choices, yet with different purposes the . The pretest
was used to confirm the homogeneity of the two groups from the
outset, while the post-test was employed to compare the significant
difference of the group at the end of the experiment. At the beginning of the experiment, the mean scores of the pre-test of
the experimental and the control groups revealed that the two groups
were significantly homogenous on their comprehension level of the
English verb tenses at P<0.05 significance level. After instructional
treatment, however, the mean scores of the post-test revealed that
experimental group statistically outperformed the control group at the
given significance level. In other words, the findings of the study
showed that inductive approach is exceedingly effective than deductive
one in enabling students to get grasp of English verb tenses. It was also found that the high and low achievers in the experimental
group outperformed their counterparts in the control group. This is
meant that inductive approach not only handy for high achievers, but it
is also helpful for low achievers, too. Therefore, it is recommended that
all stakeholders who directly or indirectly engage in language teaching
should encourage inductive grammar instruction and other innovative
language teaching approaches so that our students deservedly benefit
from them.
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Comparative Study