THE EFFECT OF DIRECT INSTRUCTION MODEL ON INTERMEDIATE CLASS ACHIEVEMENT AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Abstract

Direct instruction is one specific model of teacher-directed, explicit instruction. Direct Instruction (DI) is an approach for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. 'It is based on the theory that clears instruction and elimination of misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate student learning'. In the direct instruction approach, teacher’s role is to pass facts, rules, or action sequences to students in as direct way as possible. It is especially useful for teaching well structured subjects like mathematics, English grammar etc. The components of direct instruction include informing the students of learning objectives, activating their prerequisite knowledge, explaining the new topic in small and sequential steps, providing sufficient supervised practice and giving immediate feedback followed by independent practice in the form of seatwork and homework. Direct instruction approach has attracted worldwide attention of research scientists at all levels of education and in all subject areas. The results mostly favor the effectiveness of this approach. In Pakistan, this approach is still unfamiliar to practitioners in education, including teaching English language at the secondary and higher secondary level. 'The study was designed to investigate the effects of direct instruction model on intermediate class achievement in and attitudes towards English grammar'. The objectives of the study were to measure the achievement of the experimental group and control group after providing treatment of direct instruction to the experimental group, to measure the attitude of the experimental group and control group after providing treatment of direct instruction to the experimental group, to compare the achievement of the experimental group with the control group, to compare the attitude of the experimental group and control group towards English grammar after providing treatment of direct instruction, to compare the effect of direct instruction on the retention of students in English grammar. xviTo achieve the above-mentioned objectives, 11 null hypotheses were formulated and tested. The sample of the study comprised 52 1 st year students who were matched on their ability in English grammar and placed into experimental group and control group on the basis of specially designed pretest. The study was conducted in Cantt College for Women Wah Cantt. A valid and reliable pretest and a posttest in English grammar was developed to measure the achievement of students in English grammar. An attitude scale was developed to measure the attitude of the student towards English grammar and administered before and after the treatment. The experimental group was taught through direct instruction approach and control group was taught as usual, through the traditional approach for the period of three months. t-test and Chi-Sqaure were applied to test the above null hypotheses and .05 was selected level of significance. The results of Direct Instruction Model were consistently better than those of traditional instruction both in terms of achievement and attitude. After an interval of six weeks, the students taught through DI also showed better retention.