A Development of the active learning instructional model for enhancing secondary school students' English communicative abilities in large classes

Abstract

There are three objectives of the study (1) to develop the Active Learning Instructional (ALI) Model to be implemented in large classes to enhance secondary school students' English communicative abilities; (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of the ALI Model through experts' validation and by implementing such in a large authentic language classroom; and (3) to study the students' opinions towards the ALI Model for enhancing their English communicative abilities in large classes. Ninety-six grade-ten students, who studied in semester 2 of the academic year 2005 at a secondary school in Nakhon Pathom Province, were purposively selected at first and then randomly selected to be part of an experimental group and a control group, each of which contained 48 students. Before the experiment. SLEP Test from 4, as a pretest, was administered to both groups and the results confirmed that they were comparable. The study were comparable. The study was conducted on both groups during 14 weeks. The experimental group obtained a 10-week communicative English instruction based on the Active Learning Instructional (ALI) Model, while the control group received a 10-week communicative English instruction based on traditional teaching (PPP Method). The data collection consisted of the weekly students' reflective journals. Moreover, after the treatments, the proficiency test (SLEP Test form 5) and the performance test were administered to the students in both groups in order to evaluate the differences of both groups. Furthermore, the students in the experimental group had a chance to complete the questionnaires eliciting their opinions on the ALI Model instruction and 12 students in the group were randomly selected for the interviews. Based on the results of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the ALI Model, the experts had a consensus that the developed ALI Model was appropriate for enhancing secondary school students’ English communicative abilities in large classes. Furthermore, the results from the implementation of the ALI Model in a large authentic class revealed that the data obtained from t-test showed a statistically significant difference in the students' performance mean scores between the experimental and control groups at a significance level of .05. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the students’ English proficiency mean scores between both groups at a significance level of .05. The data from the questionnaires, interviews, and students' reflective journals showed that the students in the experimental group had positive opinions retarding the ALI Model of instruction.