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

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