Comparative Effects of Audio-Lingual and Direct Teaching Methods on Secondary School Students’ Oral English Achievement in Benin Republic

Abstract

The Republic of Benin is a French-speaking country where English is taught as a foreign language in secondary schools and universities. But after spending seven years spanning secondary and tertiary education most students are unable to speak the target language fluently. The students’ performance in English language in both written and oral examinations is generally poor. The study therefore adopted the quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test, non-randomised and non-equivalent control group to investigate the relative effects of Audio-lingual and Direct teaching methods on secondary school students’ oral English achievement in Benin Republic. Four schools were categorised into three experimental groups and one control group. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test all the five hypotheses formulated. The findings of the study indicated a significant difference in the students’ general achievement when exposed to each of the three teaching methods. However, the combination of direct and audio-lingual teaching methods was the most effective followed by the audio-lingual teaching method. The implication is that English language teachers should employ activity-oriented methods to improve the learners’ oral English proficiency, especially those involving drilling and repetition as EFL students are less exposed to the target language than their ESL counterparts.