An examination of the effect of communicative activities on student performance in French as a second language

King, David Carson (1987) An examination of the effect of communicative activities on student performance in French as a second language. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine what effect the addition of communicative activities would have on the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in French as a second language at the secondary level. -- To achieve this aim, a Teacher's Guide outlining student activities for communicating in the classroom was developed by the investigator to accompany Component 22 of Passeport Francais 6. The question of whether there was an effect on speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, as measured by teacher-made global tests, by the introduction of such activities was examined. The hypotheses stated that there was no significant difference in achievement on the four skills between students following the communicative approach and students following the regular program. Students' attitudes were also collected on a questionnaire and examined. -- As a test of similarity, the Mid-Term Exam, a comprehensive test of all skills, was taken as the pre-test and groups were found to be similar in performance in French at the commencement of the study. The two groups differed in instruction in that one group was instructed by following the communicative activities outlined in the Teacher's Guide prepared for this study while the other group followed the regular program. -- After four (4) weeks of instruction, the students were given tests of speaking, listening, reading and writing. The communicative group, or those who followed the Teacher's Guide activities, was given a questionnaire as well. The test instruments were developed by the investigator and were evaluated by teachers in the field as well as a curriculum specialist. -- The data collected was analyzed by finding the means, range and standard deviations for both groups on all subtests. One-way analysis of variance results were calculated in addition to multiple regression tests to control for teacher differences. The null hypotheses were tested using correlation coefficients. -- The major findings of the study showed that on the skills of speaking and listening there is a positive relationship between the introduction of communicative activities and performance on those skills. On the skills of reading and writing there was no significant difference in the performance of students attributable to communicative activities, although there are some favourable results for the communicative group. Total performance improved significantly for the communicative group. Finally, students expressed the desire to be able to speak French as a goal of their French program and they felt that their instruction should involve them in communication-like activities.

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