Improving Bilingual Students’ Language Skills through the Use of Teaching Model in Philosophy for Children and Community of Enquiry

To help Turkmen bilingual students improve their language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, it was hypothesized that if the method used in teaching these skills were the same as that used in teaching philosophy to children revolving around the notion of community of enquiry, students’ language skills would develop. To test this hypothesis, a cluster sample of 103 third graders, selected in stages from among all third graders in North Khorasan Province, was divided into two groups of experimental and control with equal number of boys and girls in each group. All groups were pretested on language skills using a test constructed for this purpose and with adequate validity and internal consistency. The experimental groups went through a twenty-session course wherein the said model was utilized, while the control groups spent the time learning the skills regularly. All groups were post-tested. Data analyses revealed that the experimental groups’ skills improved much better than those of the control groups. No significant difference was observed between male and female students. Hence, the use of this method is recommended.