| This study seeks to examine the effectiveness of the traditionally recognized FLT approach of Grammar-translation Method (GTM) and its possible integration with Communicative Approach (CA). The objective of the study is to find out to what degree of the methods may promote high school junior students’ reading ability. The study addresses three general questions:(1) Which method is more effective in promoting secondary school EFL learners’ reading ability in their reading class? GTM or its integration with CA? (2) To what degree are the two approaches effective in the effectiveness in promoting learners’ reading ability? (3) In what way does GTM or its integration with CA promote the learners’ reading ability?The study is an experiment followed by interviews, and the experiment lasted three months. Two intact Grade 8 classes were selected as the controlled class (CC) and the experimental class (EC), each with 30 subjects. The independent-samples t test of the pre-test indicated that there was no significant difference between the two classes in reading comprehension. CC students were treated and trained by GTM, and EC students were treated and trained by both GTM and CA. The two classes were taught by the same teacher, namely, the author of this thesis. The post-test in paired samples t test was conducted to see the difference in either of the classes before and after the experiment. The independent-samples t test was also conducted to see the difference in either of the classes in post-experiment. Data analysis generated the following findings:(1) The independent-samples t test conducted for the results of the post-test indicates that there is a significant difference (p=.000) between the two classes, and EC is better than CC. Detailed analysis shows that GTM integrated with CA is more effective in promoting the students’ comprehensive reading skills, in terms of the ability to search for detailed information, to find out main idea, to make inference, to understand the author’s attitude, to make an educated guess and be aware of the text structure. Interestingly, CC students performed better in task-based reading comprehension. These results suggest that the two approaches of GTM and GTM integrated with CA are both effective in promoting the students’reading ability but with their different focus on reading skills.(2) The paired samples t test conducted for the results of the post-test and pre-test indicates that both approaches are effective more or less in promoting the students’ reading comprehension and the traditional approach of Grammar-translation Method should not be abandoned, particularly in the case of the teaching of the young learners.(3) The interviews following the experiment show that EC students had an obvious preference to the teaching approach of GTM integrated with CA. Specifically, they were attracted by variety of designed activities, such as free-talk, picture-talk, role play, discussion in pair-work and group-work, text retelling, implicating that CA is more attractive to the young learners. The interviews also suggest that GTM integrated with CA may promote the students’active thinking and boost their interest in language use in communication.The findings in the study may have some pedagogical implications:from teachers’perspective, GTM is somehow conductive to basic language knowledge, particularly for young learners of English, and it should not be totally cast away, and its integration with CA can be viewed as remodeled version of CTM and would presumably be more effective in guiding students’active use of language. From the students’perspective, they may benefit themselves from GTM in explicit instruction in terms of lexico-grammatical knowledge while GTM’s integration with CA may promote the students’linguistic proficiency more comprehensively and more effectively. |
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