Browsing by Author "Amanuel Gebru"

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    Assessing the Organizational Structure of Ethiopian Airlines Group PR and Corporate Communications Department
    (Addis Ababa University, 2022-09-10) Ashenafi Zeray; Amanuel Gebru
    The aim of this paper is to look at the implementation of the organizational structure of the Ethiopian Airlines PR and Corporate Communications and it examines the causes of the overall challenges of the department structures, the decision-making process in the department, and the organizational communication of the Ethiopian Airlines PR and Corporate Communications. The qualitative research paradigm was used as a method of study. Accordingly, focus group discussions with two groups, in-depth interviews with four members of the department, and participant observations were conducted to explore employees' and management views on the operation of the organizational structure. The researcher found out that it is important to take the dominant coalition, classical and excellence theory of communication approach to organization as theoretical framework. The major findings of the study indicated that, although the organizational structures have been changed repeatedly; fundamental changes have not been achieved within the department. The structure creates a knowledge gap and external customer dissatisfaction, an unnecessary bureaucratic system of decision making, and not being represented in the organizational structure are among the main factors that affect the effectiveness of the department. There were also gaps revealed by the study like the place of PR in the organizational structure which affects the practices and the absence of public relations research in the department. Therefore, restructuring the organizational structure based on knowledge-based research, empowering the PR professionals, and updating all recent strategic information to the professionals were some of the recommendations made
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    An Assessment of A Wigni Language Educational Radio Broadcast In The First Cycle Primary Schools of Awl Zone
    (Addis Ababa university, 2007-08) Desalegn Asfaw,; Amanuel Gebru
    Improvement in the provision of quality of Awigni Language Radio instruction is emphasized as one of the desired outcome of the study. As language is fundamental to all learning) it is imperative that the great concern of this research is assessing of Awign Language Radio instruction in the first cycle primary schools of Awi zone. To conduct the study) descriptive survey research methodology was used. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed. The instruments used to collect data were questionnaire) class room observation and interview guide. By using these th~ree. data collecting instruments) data were collected from 200 grade 3 and 4 students) 20 teachers 5 school directors and 5 zone Education Department Awigni Language Radio program producers (Media experts). Since the population of the study is too large) simple random sampling Technique was employed. One school was selected from each woreda) thus a total of 5 schools were sampled randomly. Simple random method sampling (lottery) was employed in the selection of students. Besides this) by considering total population as a source of data) all grade 3 and 4 teachers (i.e. 20 teachers) )5 school directors of the sampled schools and media experts (Awigni Language Radio program producers) in the zone Education Department were included. The obtained data were analyzed using percentages and the summated score technique. The findings of the study indicated that the attitude of the students and teachers towards Awigni Language radio instruction is favorable (positive). Moreover) the quality) appropriateness of the program content and presentation to the age level and interest of the students is also accepted by most of the students and teachers. However) there are problems which affect the effective implementation of the program. These are the absence of radio teacher)s guide and radio lesson manuals) the absence 0 f teacher training courses which helps teachers how to implement radio lesson) lack of in-service training and less qualified teachers (teachers without pre-service training)) problem of radio functioning) poor radio maintenance services from the center) absence of supervision) poor sound clarity. Besides this) inadequate supply of radio sets) high teaching load) large class size) clashes of class scheduling. The findings of the study also showed that the activities which should be performed by the class room teachers and students before) during and after broadcast are not performed in the majority of the observation classes. In Awigni Language Educational Radio program production and transmission) only few teachers participated. Finally) in the light of the findings) conclusions have been drawn and recommendations have been forwarded to address the problems
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    Gender Differences in Participation in Group Discussions in Freshman English Classes at Addis Ababa University
    (1996-06) Amanuel Gebru; Hailemichael Aberra
    The study aimed to find gender differences in verbal participation in discussion groups in Freshman English classes at Addis Ababa University. It also aimed to find differences in assertiveness between male and female students and correlations between assertiveness and verbal participation. Statistical analysis of interactional turns in the videotapes of discussions of majority- female, majority-male and halt'male-half female groups showed no gender differences. Similarly no significant statistical differences between male assertiveness and female assertiveness were found. Also correlations between assertiveness and verbal activity were found to be generally weak.
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    Gender Differences in Participation in Group Discussions in Freshman English Classes at Addis Ababa University
    (Addis Ababa University, 1996-06) Amanuel Gebru ; Hailemichael Aberra
    The study aimed to find gender differences in verbal participation in discussion groups in Freshman English classes at Addis Ababa University. It also aimed to find differences in assertiveness between male and female students and correlations between assertiveness and verbal participation. Statistical analysis of interactional turns in the videotapes of discussions of majority-female, majority-male and halfmale-half female groups showed no gender differences. Similarly no significant statistical differences between male assertiveness and female assertiveness were found. Also correlations between assertiveness and verbal activity were found to be generally weak.
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    Instructors' Perception Of Usefulness Of Student Evaluation For Teacher And Course Development: A Case Study Of Aau, The Department Of English
    (Addis Ababa University, 2011-09) Akalewold Damtew ; Amanuel Gebru
    The main objective of this study is to determine AAU's English instructors' perception of usefulness of student evaluation for teacher and course development. The study also attempts to find out factors affecting instructors' perception of student evaluation. In addition, it attempts to discover whether it is used as an input for teacher and course development. In collecting the data, 28 instructors were purposely taken out of 52 instructors from the Department of English excluding instructors of literature. However, the sample was largely-male dominated because the number of male instructors was much greater than the number of female instructors. The number of male instructors was 25 and the number of female instructors was 3. In the researcher's view, the sample is good because it involves different characteristics i.e. sex, rank and specialization area. The data gathering tools were a questionnaire and an interview. The data obtained from the data gathering tools were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Accordingly, the major findings were: most English instructors of the university believe that student evaluations are useful for teacher and course development if both the data gathering instruments and the data collected using them are valid and reliable. In addition, there are factors perceived by the instructors that affect the validity of student evaluation which are different from those mentioned by researchers i.e. lack of skill (reading and writing), lack of knowledge of methodology of teaching, lack of knowledge of usefulness of student evaluation, receiving misinformation from previous students and prejudice about the instructors and courses. However, instructors are recommended: even though student eval~ations have some limitations, they should conduct both formative and summative student evaluation because it is i.lseful for teacher and course development. Educational experts are recommended: when student evaluations are prepared, they should be rigorously validated and reliable to gather relevant data. With regard to students, they should evaluate instructors and courses accurately and in a way which is free from any bias.
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    The Nature of Turn Taking Patterns in Group Discussion: 10+2 Students of Cruise Private School in Focus
    (Addis Ababa University, 2008-07) Yohannes Berhanemskel; Amanuel Gebru
    This study was carried out to describe the nature of turn taking patterns among Grade 12 students of Cruise Private School in their group discussions to see the level of students participation and to explore the involvement of the teacher and group leaders in giving and taking turns. For the study, 18 students of grade 12 students of one section were selected. The students were grouped in to three with six members in each. The data was gathered by video recording the discussions and was analyzed using Allwright’s (1980) model. The overall result showed that the majority of the turns were taken by the students, i.e. (124 or 65.26%) out of the total turns of 190. From these, the great majority of the turns were taken trough self-initiated moves. On the other hand the teacher and the group leaders together took 66 turns or 34.74% out of the overall turns of 190. The findings further indicated that, out of the overall total of 93 turns, the majority was made by the students, which is 56 or 60.23%. The teacher and the group leaders made a total of 18 or 19.35% and 19 or 20.43% respectively. Finally, female Vs male students level of participation indicated that, from the total of 169 turns, the great majority of the turns were taken by male students (116 or 68.64%) and female students took the lesser turns (53 or 31.36%).
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    Participation Of Female Students In Mixed And Single-Sex Group Discussions In Efl Classes At Adama Teachers Training College
    (Addis Ababa University, 2007-02) Abera Kasaye ; Amanuel Gebru
    This study was carried out to see if there were gender differences in ve rbal participation in Engli sh as Foreign Language classroom group discussions at Adama Teachers Training College. For the study students whose four semesters cumulative grade point average (CGPA) in Engli sh courses was 2.00-2.50 were identitied from the total five sections of Language Stream students, and from them 36 (27 females and 9 males) were randomly selected. Then they were divided in to three same-sex groups of lema Ie students and three mixed-sex groups. The data was gathered by video recording the group discussions and by interviewing some of the male students and female students in the sample population . The recording was made two times in the course of two double on-off periods and, on average. Aile group was video taped for half an hour. The recording was tran sc ribed and Van Lier's ( 1988) modified model was used to describe the transcribed data. The overall results reveal that the amount of verbal participation of female students in mixed-sex group discussions was less as compared to the amount or verbal participation of their male counter parts. The results also showed that female students in the mixed-sex groups took less initiative to interact in the group than their male counter parts. The female students did less in areas of topic work, sel f-se lection, allocation, and sequencing of discourse. Besides although each group was given four chances to choose volunteer group leader and change roles. none of the female students in the mixed-sex groups shouldered the responsibility of leading groups, and the overa ll direction of the discourse was controlled by their male counter parts. The interview results support these findin gs in that 100% of the male respondents anc! 80% of the female respondents said they believe thaI girls are less active participants in group di scuss ions than boys are. As a result. II! 80% of the male respondents said that they prefer working in mixed-sex groups to single-sex groups in order to 'assist' or encourage the female students ('their s iste rs' . to quote their words). And 80% of the female respondents on their part said they prefer working in mixed-sex groups to single-sex groups because they had trust in the answers the male students give .. gn the other hand, resu lts indicate that female students interact with better confidence in their same-sex groups than they do in the mixed-sex groups. Girls in their same-sex groups did better in the amount of participation in group di scussions, and in the control of the overall direction of the group interaction. They also shouldered the responsibility of group leader in their same-sex group discussions. The findings, therefore, estab li sh gender differences in group discuss ions in Engl ish as Foreign language class room group discussions.
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    Perception and Classroom Practice of Communicative Language Teaching By High School Efl Teachers and Learners: The Case of Some Selected High Schools in Addis Ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 2008-06) Beyene Gebru ; Amanuel Gebru
    The main purposes of this study were to explore high school EFL teachers’ and learners’ perception of CLT and to examine the degree they practice the CLT principles in their entire classes in Ethiopian High School context. The data were collected through questionnaires (for both teacher and learner), classroom observation, and interviews (for both teachers and learners). A questionnaire (consisting of seven thematic groups) of 75 items for 26 teachers and of 47 items for 100 learners (who were randomly selected from three government high schools); classroom observations on 10 teachers and interview with 10 teachers and 15 learners(out of the whole subjects of the questionnaires) were administered in March and April 2008 . The overall findings of this study showed that the majority of teachers (80.41 %) and more than half (62.33 %) of learners under the study had mildly high levels of perception about CLT tenets. However, the study conversely reveals that there is a clear mismatch between what teachers and learners perceive about CLT and what they actually practice in EFL context
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    A Study of High School Students English Learning Anxiety and English Achievement: With Particular Reference to Grade 11 at Dembecha Preparatory School, in West Gojjam
    (Addis Ababa University, 2008-06) Melkamu Firew ; Amanuel Gebru
    This study was designed to investigate the relationship between English language learning classroom anxiety and students’ English achievement test result. For this purpose 129 grade 11(eleven) students were randomly selected from Dembecha preparatory and secondary school. A self reporting questionnaire i.e foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS), developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), consisted of 33 items, was administered to measure the students’ foreign language classroom anxiety level. The students’ first semester English final examination result was used to determine the relationship between English classroom anxiety and English achievement test result .Descriptive statistics to determine anxiety level,t-test to find out significance difference between males and females anxiety level and achievement and Pearson’s Moment Correlation Coefficient to determine relationship between anxiety and achievement test result were used to test the research problems. The result of the data analysis indicated that most of the students were found to be anxious. With respect to gender no significance difference was observed between males and females on their foreign language classroom anxiety level. The study further showed that there was a significant negative relationship between students’ English language classroom anxiety and English achievement test result at the significance level of 0.001.The study also investigated that there was achievement test result variation among the subjects of the study with respect to their anxiety level. Finally it was found that though males’ achievement test result was a little bit higher than that of females, no significant difference was found on achievement between them. The findings of this study depicted that anxiety is prevalent among the subjects of the study and had negative correlations with their English language achievement test result. And the study made recommendations aimed at reducing classroom English language learning anxiety.
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    Teachers' Practices and Students' Preferences for Written Feedback: Debre Birhan University in Focus
    (Addis Ababa University, 2009-06) Maru Mohammed; Amanuel Gebru
    The purpose of this study was to investigate the teachers ' written feedback practice and students' preferences and the reasons behind their practices and preferences. Specifically it was aimed at finding out: (1) What teachers' written feedback practices are, (2) the reasons bifhind their written feedbackpractices, (3)students' preferences for this feedback and reasons for their preferences, (4) the discrepancies between teacher written feedback practices and students'preferences (5) the students' feelings about and responses to teachers' written feedback. In order to achieve these aims, feedback analysis of 75 marked papers collected from 5 instructors of Sophomore English at DBU were compared with: (1)teachers' reported practice from a questionnaire survey and a follow up interview with all of them (2) data found from questionnaire administered to 80 students (who were randomly selected from 12 section of four departments) which probed their preferences and reasons for their preferences (3) an interview data with 15 of students , which revealed their feelings about and responses to written feedback. The re sults show that there were mismatches not only between what teachers reported and what they actually provided but also between teachers ' actual feedback practice and ,students' preferences. Teachers provided feedback after students had comp leted their work, ,w,',ile over half (56.25%) students preferred to get this feedback in the earlier drafts and after the final ones. Feedback analysis indicated that teachers focused on form (86.7%) than on organization (3 .07%) and content (3.42%) which met students' preferences. But over 60% the students wanted more feedback on each area . The study also revealed that on average te ac hers mostly employed direct correction (64.27%) employing the techniques 'adding ', 'deleting', 's ubstitution ' land indirect correction using 'underline '! 'circle' technique (34.42%), which mismatched students' preferences as they preferred direct correction over indirect correction. In spite of instru cto rs'error focused feedback, negative comments and criticism, students seemed to be generally positive about teachers ' written feedback. Most teachers rarely discussed their feedback behavior for the students. Finally, based on the findings, discussions and conclusions the researcher suggested the need to : take into account leamers ' preferences in written feedback, employ a range of indirect error feedback strategies, focus on global aspects of students' writing, give p'raise and criticism side by side, encourage students to write multiple drajis, and intervene in the students ' writing process.