Effectiveness of English as A Medium of Instruction in Physical Education

Abstract

Using quasi experimental design, the study was conducted primarily to compare the effectiveness of using English as a medium of instruction in Physical Education with Chinese as a medium of instruction in Physical Education course. Based on the results of the research, the following conclusions were drawn: The students who belong to the Chinese (control group) and English (experimental group) showed that they have a low performance in their pretest scores in knowledge and competence which proved that they had a low understanding before instruction, as such the students did not meet the average level of proficiency in Physical Education subjects in terms of knowledge and competencies. It can be inferred that students’ scores were lower on the pre-test because they had not yet studied the material which was tested. Furthermore, the following were also inferred based from the results: A significant difference in the knowledge and competencies of the control and experimental group based on their pre-test scores was noted as such there should be interventions even before the experiment. This suggest further that students who were exposed to usage of Chinese as a method of teaching in PE still registered a significant increase in the students’ knowledge and competencies. The difference between the post test scores in the two groups in favor of the experimental groups was proven significant. This means that learning took place in the usage of English as a medium of instruction in the experimental group while no significant difference was noted in the level of proficiency in knowledge based on the post test of the control and experimental groups. However, a significant difference was observed on the level of proficiency in the post test results of the two groups in the area of competencies. The increased in the post-test which means that they have retained what they have learned better when they were taught Physical Education using English as a medium of instruction. Significant difference was observed in the level of proficiency in terms of knowledge and competencies in the pre-test and postest results of the experimental group. Furthermore, no significant difference was noted in the level of proficiency in terms of knowledge and compencies in the pre-test post test results of the control group. On this basis it can be concluded that usage of English as a medium of instruction was effective. This conclusion only applied to the specific context of this study and the specific measures used to assess the effectiveness. There was a low number of participants involved in the study as a result caution was needed to be taken regarding the generalization of the findings.