Developing Learners' Second Language Communicative Competence through Active Learning: Clickers or Communicative Approach?

The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of clickers, the communicative approach and the lecture method on the communicative competence development of learners who were taught English a second language (ESL). Ninety nine pupils from three primary schools participated in the study. Quasi-experimental nonrandomised pre-test posttest control group design was adopted for the study. A battery of English Language Listening Tests and English Language Speaking Tests were used to measure pupils’ communicative competence. Study’s data were analysed using boxplot, paired samples t-test, Analysis of covariance and multiple regression analyses. Findings indicated that, there was a significant difference between the communicative competence pre-test and post-test scores of pupils in each of the groups. Furthermore, across the groups, there was a significant difference in pupils’ communicative competence post-test scores based on the teaching strategy. Multiple regression analysis results revealed that 84.9% of the variance of pupils’ communicative competence was accounted for by a combination of the predictor variables. Speaking skills was the potent contributor while gender did not make a significant contribution to the prediction of pupils’ communicative competence in ESL classrooms.