There is genera lly a repeated question among language instructors and researchers of how best languages can be learned in cla ssroom settings. One of the questions often r aised is what type of grammar instruction can be the most effective in each language setting. The present study tries to answer this question through examining the outcome of the lessons taught through inductive versus dedu ctive approaches, teaching four s elected verb forms to 54 participants who study pre - university English in the Islamic Azad University, Kazeroun, Iran. A preliminary assessment was administered by the instructor. Then the students were randomly divided into two groups and were exposed to the two opposing approaches of grammar instruction. The first two lessons (present perfect and present perfect continuous) were taught through the inductive approach to the first group and then a test was administered to evaluate the st udents' achievement. Then the two other verb forms (past perfect and past perfect continuous) were taught through the deductive approach to the second group and another test was administered. Two paired t - tests were run to evaluate the achievement of students, one for the ded uctive approach and the other for the inductive one. Finally, an independent t - test was run to compare the achievements of the students through the two approaches. The results of the study indicated that the instruction through both approaches was useful b ut there was a slightly higher level of achievement in the lessons taught through the inductive approach compared with the other approach. The result of this study indicates that the inductive approach is preferable to the deductive one in grammar instruct ion.
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