Is the Communicative Language Teaching Approach More Effective Than the Grammar Translation Method at Teaching the Ba-Construction in Mandarin Chinese to American Undergraduate Students?

Abstract

Extensive research on second language teaching has been conducted on teaching English, other European languages or Chinese as a second language, but no quantitative study exists comparing the effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT) with that of Grammar Translation Method (GT) at teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). The present study fills this gap. The purpose of this study is to investigate quantitatively which method is more effective at teaching the ba-construction in Mandarin Chinese to American CFL learners, CLT or GT. Sixty American students from introductory Chinese course at the University of Georgia (UGA) were given the opportunity to sign up for one of two classes to learn about the ba-construction. During one of the classes, thirty students learned under GT approach; during the other class, the remaining thirty students learned under CLT approach. The students, prior to signing up, were not aware of the method that would be used in their course. All students were tested before and after the course on three linguistic measures: Oral Production, Translation, and Meta-linguistic Awareness based on the ba-construction, and were scored on both occasions. A group of thirty Chinese students were also tested on the three measures but post-tested only and classroom teaching was unnecessary. They were included as reference group, not a "typical" control group. One-Way ANCOVA was conducted in SPSS. Pretest scores were entered into data analysis as covariates to control for possible pre-existing differences among the participants. Findings of this study showed that GT is statistically more effective than CLT at developing translation skills regarding the ba-construction. But this study produced no evidence regarding the superiority of GT or CLT at developing oral production skills or raising meta-linguistic awareness regarding the ba-construction, though both methods did appear to be highly significantly effective from pretests to posttests. This study has rich pedagogical implications and suggests meaningful directions for future studies on CFL instruction.