The purposes of this study were 1) t o examine the effects of the Communicative approach with explicit explanation of grammatical rules (the commun icative activity + rules method) on learning, 2) to investigate the effects of the communicat ive activity + rules method on learners' motivation to learn and their recognition of English learning, and 3) to examine the relationship between learners' aptitudes an d teaching methods: i. e. ATI effects. In order to investigate the communicative act ivity + rules method, the Communicative approach without explanation of rules was adopted as a control method. Sixty-eight sixth graders who had experience in lea rning English as beginners for six hours, were assigned to one of the two methods and were taught English for about eight hours. The results indicated that the communic ative activity + rules method produced no difference on academic resu lts, but it decreased the learners' motivation to learn. Also, the results showed that learners i n the communicative activity + rules method tended to recognize that in English learning, the grammatical rules was the most important. Furthermore, six ATI e ffects were observed between learners' aptitudes and the two teaching methods.