A Personal Research: Modern versus Traditional. Which is Most Effective?

Introduction
The aim of this paper is to find out which teaching methods will “win the battle“
between the traditional and modern methods or if they can work together for an effective
English teaching in Romanian primary schools. As each teaching method has diverse features
with advantages and disadvantages and the pupils from primary schools are different and they
have diverse ways of acquiring a new language, different from their mother tongue , like
English and it is hard to say which methods can be efficient and which cannot.
Nowadays, the curricular changes in the teaching-learning system focuses on the
modern methods and on the need of people to practice the language, to genuinely employ it in
real life situations, to interact and offer suitable feedback to people, to communicate. Even
so, I can say that traditional methods are still used in Romanian schools. Even myself, I must
admit, I use them sometimes. I usually try to train my pupils to communicate in English ,but
sometimes I use Romanian language, especially when explaining grammar and when I realize
that my pupils do not understand what I am saying and look at me rather confused . Pupils use
it when they feel embarrassed to speak in English aloud, being afraid that their classmates
could laugh at their pronunciation.
During my paper I applied the traditional methods – the Grammar- Translation
Method, the Direct Method and the Audio- Lingual Method and the modern methods – Total
Physical Response, Suggestopedia, the Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based
Language Teaching in the classroom and what was the pupils’ reaction towards each of them.
The Description of the participants
Working in a small school, there are not parallel classes of the same level (age)
and I couldn’t create two groups of pupils and compare them. Because of this situation, I
chose to focus my research on a group of pupils, the 3rd graders from a small community ,
from a village that currently became a small town. The class consists of 15 pupils of the same
age, 9-10 years old and most of them have the same level of English. From the total number
of 15 pupils, 9 are girls. They are communicative, they are used to work and study a lot, they
are active pupils, some of them are gifted for learning foreign languages , they like English,
they prefer oral tasks than written ones. They like working in pairs or in small groups. Some
of them are in a continuous competition and want to be better than the others. There are also
some lazy pupils who sometimes forget to do their homework even if they know how to do it.
All the pupils present a normal psycho-physical development. They have been studying
English since they attended the preparatory class and they have two English classes weekly.
The Details of the experiment
My research includes an experiment on methods and techniques of teaching
English, some tests and a questionnaire with pupils’ answers. The experiment lasted during
the whole school year 2018-2019. During the first semester of the school year the pupils were
exposed to traditional methods of teaching English and were tested in a traditional setting
classroom while during the second semester they were exposed to modern methods of
teaching and were tested in a modern setting classroom.
At the beginning of the school year the pupils passed a written initial evaluation in
order to check their knowledge from the previous school year. The pupils got the results that
were registered in the table below:
FB (Excellent) B ( Good) S (Satisfactory) I (Failed)
7 pupils 7 pupils 1 pupil -

After discussing the results of the test, they were told about the experiment, I
explained them the way of working during the two semesters like the rules of a game. At the
end of the first semester the pupils were tested again in a traditional manner. Their results
were registered in the table below:
FB
B (Good) S (Satisfactory) I (Failed)
(Excellent)
4 pupils 10 pupils 1 pupil -

At the end of the second semester they were tested in a modern manner. The results
were registered in the table below:
FB B ( Good) S (Satisfactory) I (Failed)
(Excellent)
5 pupil 8 pupils 2 pupils -
 Questionnaire concerning the activities and the techniques used for learning
English

1. What type of activities do you prefer for learning English? Choose

from: projects/ listening activities/ grammar exercises/ vocabulary exercises/ reading/
conversations/ dialogues/ writing activities/ role play/ watching video materials/
translations/ games.
2. What are the skills you are good at? Choose from: understanding an
audio or video material in English/ writing in English/ reading in English/ speaking in
English.
3. What are the skills you need to improve ? Choose from: listening/
writing/ reading/ speaking.
4. What type of interaction do you prefer during the English classes?
Choose from: individual/ pair work/ team or group work.
5. What activities did you like best during this school year?
Evaluation of the questionnaire
Analysing the pupils’ answers to the questionnaire regarding their preferences
in matter of activities for learning English, I concluded that they liked projects (11),
translations (10), vocabulary exercises (8), games (8), watching video materials (8),
conversations (7), role play (6), reading (6), grammar exercises (4),listening to audio
materials (3) and writing activities (2).
As for the skills they are good at I recorded the following: speaking (9),
listening (8), reading (8) and writing (7).
Asking about what pupils want to improve concerning their skills, they
answered: speaking (12), writing (11), listening (5) and reading (3).
As for the pupils’ preferences regarding the type of interaction during the
lessons, I could record the following: team work (10), pair work (10) and individual
work (2).
And finally the pupils’ favourite activities for learning English during the
school year were: grammar exercises, vocabulary exercises, reading, conversations,
translations, games, watching video materials, projects and role play.
 CONCLUSIONS

This section of the paper represents the result of the analysis of the research.
The aim of the paper was to find out what are the most enjoyable and recommended
techniques of teaching English for primary level – traditional or modern and if we can
integrate them for an effective teaching.
Therefore I focused my work on a comparison of traditional techniques of teaching
English (Grammar Translation, the Direct Method and Audio-lingual) and modern techniques
(TPR, Suggestopedia, Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Language
Teaching). I was interested in the pupils’ attitude towards these techniques. In order to get to a
conclusion I prepared some lessons based on techniques mentioned above.
For the theoretical part of this paper I studied materials about children psychology,
written or online materials on modern and traditional methodology and materials about
teaching English in Romanian primary school and about the place of English at this age level
in our country.
I described the historical backgrounds, main characteristics, advantages and
disadvantages of the above mentioned techniques used in teaching English to primary school
learners.
The practical section of the paper was in fact an experiment with the pupils. Thus
during the first semester of the last school year the 3rd grade pupils were exposed to
traditional techniques of teaching English and were tested in a traditional setting classroom
while during the second semester they were exposed to modern techniques of teaching and
were tested in a modern setting classroom in order to assess the lessons’ effectiveness.
Therefore I took into consideration the pupils’ attitude towards the lessons, the
results of the tests at the end of the semesters and the pupils’ answers to the questionnaire
regarding the activities and the techniques used for learning English. I came to the conclusion
that the pupils liked more the lessons from the second semester when they could interact more
in the target language, they made projects, played games, watched video materials and talked
about them. The pupils preferred to work in groups or pairs. They could communicate more as
they did using Task- Based Language Teaching and Communicative Language Teaching
technique.
The pupils also liked some activities during the lessons which focused on Grammar
Translation such as reading, grammar and vocabulary exercises, translations but they didn’t
like too many translations and grammar explanations. Sometimes they needed some
translation when using the Direct Method.
The children did not enjoy the excessive amount of drills (the single- slot
substitution drills and the multiple-slot substitution drills which they found annoying and they
got tired doing them.
Regarding the TPR technique I could say that the pupils liked games, songs that
involved body movement, the activities of matching pictures or flashcards to body movement
or pantomime but after a series of activities that included body movement they got tired.
The children also liked to work using Suggestopedia because of the relaxing
atmosphere, the use of classical music, the pantomime or flashcards for explaining the new
words.
If we take a look at the results of the tests and compare them, we can notice that at
the end of the first semester when the children were tested after having used traditional
techniques, 46% of them got FB (Excellent) mark and 46% of them got B (Good) mark,
while at the test from the end of the second semester when the pupils used modern teaching
techniques, 26% of them got FB (Excellent) mark and 66% of them got B (Good) mark. And
that happened because they are used to being taught the traditional way and not all the pupils
are good at listening and understanding a spoken message and some of them are afraid of
expressing their ideas or communicate in a foreign language.
As a conclusion of the research I can state that both traditional and modern
techniques of teaching English brings results regarding the levels of theoretical knowledge,
but modern techniques are also more effective in stimulating pupils to speak and create a
positive attitude to the topic. They are more motivated to work, to learn. Therefore, modern
techniques should be preferred for primary school learners.
Pupils enjoy those lessons that satisfy their expectations, needs, curiosities and
passions. As a consequence, the teachers should take into account these details when they
prepare the lessons and create activities that are diverse and stimulating for their pupils.

Prof. Căilean Irina-Eleonora