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 in the first group, giving instruction and then students responding with body movement. CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) was adopted in the second group, which emphasized interaction and communication genuinely. Conventional teaching method was used in 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.