A Study of the Development of Courseware and Students’ Learning Effectiveness in Primary Education: Using Three Teaching Techniques as an Example

Abstract

As Taiwan has carried on its educational reform, many
problems have emerged over the past ten years. These issues have to be
solved as soon as feasible. Specifically, primary education is facing
severity in competition and stern challenges in a fast globalizing world.
This study aims to explore Taiwan’s English education so as to find out
new approaches to revision and innovation. In Taiwan, most students
have to learn English since elementary school. English teachers usually
adopt different methods to teach students so as to achieve teaching
excellence. Three groups of primary school students participated in a
study with three teaching methods involved for learning English as a
foreign language (EFL). TPR (Total Physical Response) was employed
with the first group, giving instruction and then students responding
with body movement. CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) was
adopted with the second group, which emphasized interaction and
communication genuinely. Conventional teaching method was used
with the third group, in which students learned from what teachers
taught in class. The pre- and post-test were carried out to investigate
which teaching method was the most significant. The present study
indicates under controlled conditions that TPR & CLT, proven beneficial
in TPR & CLT context, can yield a positive outcome. In contrast, the
traditional teaching method has the least progress among the three
teaching methods. In addition, the findings of the study support that the
participants enhanced in the vocabulary and picture matching of the
posttest. The result of this study could be a good demonstration for
teachers to provide more options in English learning. Through the curriculum,                                                                                                                    teachers could promote the ability to devise a flexible
variety of activities in order to stimulate pupils’ learning as well as make
them better interested in English. This study has set up a great value for
other similar researches and should be replicated with students at
various English proficiency levels.