| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 94 === The study aims to investigate Taiwan students’ perceptions of and likings for communicative language teaching (CLT) and the Chinese traditional approach. The proportion of CLT and the Chinese traditional approach in English classes of elementary schools and junior high schools, as perceived by students, and the students’ likings for the two teaching methods are examined in this study. The main focus is on factors that may influence the students’ different likings as well as the degree to which the identified influencing variables can explain the differences. Three types of variables are identified: social factors (including parental involvement and student-teacher relationship), affective variables (including motivation and anxiety), and personal attributes (including gender, reading habit, and learning styles).
Nine classes of students from four different junior high schools were invited to participate in the present study. Data collection was completed through the use of 4 questionnaires: a personal information section, a motivational questionnaire (Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Peng, 2002), an anxiety scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), and the Learning Styles Indicator (Wintergerst, DeCapua, & Itzen, 2001). First, descriptive statistics, including frequency, percentage, and means, were used to show tendencies in the data. The data were then analyzed by conducting correlation analysis to explore the association between variables. Lastly, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the extent to which these predictor variables (independent variables) can account for the variance of the criterion variables (dependent variables).
In a word, the goal of the present study is to test the null hypotheses listed below:
(1) There are no differences in the perceived proportion of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) activities and activities reflecting the Chinese traditional approach used in English classes of elementary and junior high schools.
(2) There are no differences in students’ liking for CLT activities and activities of the Chinese traditional approach.
(3) There is no association between students’ likings for the two teaching methods and social variables, affective factors, or personal attributes.
The results showed that in terms of perceived frequency, activities of the Chinese traditional approach were used more frequently than CLT activities in both elementary schools and junior high schools. In addition, participants in this study showed that they liked CLT activities slightly more than activities of the Chinese traditional approach. Regarding the association between students’ likings and independent variables, the results showed that motivation, student-teacher relationship, PO-GAO learning styles and students’ perceived frequency of activities in elementary schools had a stronger correlation with students’ likings. The findings of a multiple regression further indicated that motivation was the only shared predictor of students’ likings for both CLT activities and activities of Chinese traditional approach.
Although English classes in both elementary schools and junior high schools were still more structure-based, i.e. using more activities of Chinese traditional approach, students preferred CLT activities more. As a result, English teachers could consider modifying their teaching from a rather balanced use of both CLT and Chinese traditional approach to a more weighted use of CLT activities. But what is more important is that students would not like either the Chinese traditional approach or CLT until they have been motivated in learning English. Therefore, motivating students is crucial to the success of English learning and teaching. Teachers can try to better motivate students by establishing a good student-teacher relationship, seeking parents’ involvement, or encouraging a variety of learning styles.
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