The Use of Consciousness-raising Tasks in Promoting the Correct Use of the Verb “Be” among Students in Vocational Colleges

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the classification and hypothesis-building/checking in promoting the learning of the verb "be" in three structures: affirmative, negative and interrogative. The subject comprised 56 ESL students of 17 years old in a vocational college who were assigned into an experimental group and control group. They were given a treatment of six tasks on classification technique and hypothesis-building/checking and the instruments were pre-test/post-test, questionnaire and interviews. The t-test revealed the difference of means in pre-test/post-test scores within the experimental group was significant and the mean difference in gain score was also significant when compared with the control group. The findings from the interview provided explanations how these techniques assisted the learners' learning and the results from the questionnaire indicated positive opinions of the learners on the use of the techniques in learning the verb "be".