CHAPTER 2
THE METHODOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT,
RESULTS AND DATA PROCESSING
For the experiment, I selected two classes, both from Drăguțești Secondary School,
namely, the 7th A grade as for the Experimental Class, and the 7th B grade as for the Control
Class.
Both classes consist of students aged between 13 - 14 years old. With the Control
Class I used a traditional method of teaching Modal Verbs, namely the Grammar Translation
Method, while with the Experimental Class I used the modern Communicative Approach.
The research paper tried to prepare tasks which made learners able to use modal verbs
in their daily communication as well as improve their grammar skills. For the purposes of this
study, two instruments were used and the needed data was collected. First, the Diagnosis Test
was administered to determine the proficiency level of the students. Then, the second instrument
which was prepared by the researchers was employed to assess the participants’ performance in
both experimental and control groups.
I intend to demonstrate through using both these two teaching approaches that the
communicative one is superior the traditional one, more exactly, the Communicative Approach
is better than the Grammar Translation Method, using specific activities for each of the above
mentioned methods.
The textbook chosen for their study in the 7th grade is High Flyer Pre Intermediate for
both classes. The reasons that dictated this choice are the following:
- The classes present an internal homogeneity;-
- High Flyer PreIntermediate is the study book offered freely to students in our
highschool and they don’t have the possibility to purchase a better one. - Being a secondary school, some students are very interested in studying foreign
languages while some are not and the course book contains reading texts and exercises which
are fit for their level. - Because the course doesn’t follow a solid grammar syllabus, I use different
auxiliaries in order to develop the four skills. While focusing on topics that reflect young
people’s interests, several communicative activities offer real language in a real world;