Effects of the Vaughan Method in Comparison with the Audiolingual Method and the Communicative Language Teaching on Iranian Advanced EFL Learners' Speaking Skill

The present study intended to examine the effectiveness of the Vaughan method for the development of EFL learners' speaking skill. The Vaughan method was compared with two other methods, namely the Audiolingual method and communicative language teaching with regard to the development of learners' speaking skill. In a quasi-experimental design, three intact classes of 90 advanced Iranian EFL learners were given a speaking pretest. Subsequently, the learners were taught with these three methods, and the learners were administered a speaking posttest. A posthoc Scheffe test showed that the learners in the Vaughan class had performed significantly higher in comparison to the learners in the Audiolingual class, but there was no significant difference between the Vaughan method and the communicative language teaching class in terms of developing the learners' speaking skill. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered to the Vaughan class to obtain learners' attitudes towards the effectiveness of this method for the development of their speaking skill. Finally, the learners in the Vaughan class were interviewed. The results of both the questionnaire and the interview indicated that the learners believed that explicit error correction, as a major tenet of the Vaughan method, had a significant influence on their speaking skill.