The Impact of Teaching Instructional and Environmental Strategies on Iranian EFL Young Learner’s Grammar Achievement

Negar Sadeghi Hariri ,Natasha Pourdana

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.5n.7p.77

Abstract

The present study attempted to investigate the possible effects of Instructional (INS) and Environmental (ENS) strategies on Iranian EFL young learners' grammar achievement. For this purpose, 82 female language young learners ranged between 8 to 12 years of age were selected and randomly assigned into INS, ENS and Control groups in this study. After taking EPT, INS and ENS groups received EFL grammar structures accompanied by INS and ENS strategies, respectively, while Control group received only conventional instructions to English grammar. After conducting the treatment, all participants took a grammar post-test. The Null hypotheses 1 and 2 in this study assumed that the INS and the ENS strategies had no impact on Iranian EFL young learners’ grammar achievement. They were successfully rejected due to different performance of INS and ENS groups from Control group on the post-test. Statistical results did support the superiority of INS over ENS strategies. Therefore, the researcher was able to rectify that INS strategies caused higher impact on the young learners’ grammar achievement than ENS strategies. She concluded her work with some pedagogical implications and recommended topics for further research.

Highlights

Grammar in English as a Foreign Language situation was an early obstacle to overcome for a long time
While EFL students were interested in error correction, EFL teachers did agree on communicative activities (Brindley, 1984; Kumaravadivelu, 1991; Leki, 1995; Schultz, 2001)
Instructional strategies included all approaches that an EFL teacher might take to engage EFL students in learning

Summary

Introduction

Grammar in English as a Foreign Language situation was an early obstacle to overcome for a long time. As Skehart (1989), Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991), Ellis (1994), stated learning grammar was totally different among learners in the EFL situation. As it goes, a lot of interest has been growing among EFL teachers and researchers in the young learner’s learning foreign language (Hui, 2013). They emphasize that when the mother tongue used appropriately, the use of L1 can be very beneficial.Brown (2000) claims that “First language can be a fascinating factor and not just interfering factor”. Instructional strategies included all approaches that an EFL teacher might take to engage EFL students in learning. As Marzano (2009) presented nine highly yielded instructional strategies to facilitate learning process

Generating and testing hypothesis

Method

Result and Discussion