By Mc-okoronkwo, Joy Ekwutosi
This study was designated to investigate the effect of the communicative method on the performance of secondary school students, in Oral English. The study employed a true experimental design. One boys’ school in urban area of Enugu Education Zone was chosen for the study. An intact class of 40 students was randomly selected from the school. The students were randomly grouped into experimental and control groups with each group having 20 students. The treatment group was taught oral English using communicative method while the control group was taught the same subject using the Conventional method. Five research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. An oral production test and observation were used to collect data on the students’ performance. The data were analysed using mean, standard deviation and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the study revealed that communicative method significantly enhanced students ‘pronunciation of speech sounds more than the conventional method. There is no significant difference in the use of stress by the students taught with the conventional method and those taught with the communicative method. There is no significant difference in the use of grammatical words/expressions of students taught with the two methods. A significant difference exists in the use of social conventions of speaking by the students in the treatment group and those in the control group; and, the students taught oral English with the communicative method significantly performed higher than those taught with the conventional method. Based on the discussion of the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that oral English should be taught using the communicative method as it is hoped that this method will help to minimize the present problems which the students encounter in learning to communicate orally. The students will be able to speak correctly by making full and proper use of the many activities presented in the CLT method. In addition, teachers should endeavour to provide opportunities for students to engage in group discussions. This will enable the students to make frequent oral use of the language.