Browsing by Author "Haile Michael"

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    The Communicative V. The Traditional Approach to the Teaching of English Reading Comprehension At Addis Ababa University Freshman Level: A Comparative Study
    (Addis Ababa University, 1984-06) Haile Michael; Melaku Asfaw
    The purpose of this study was to find out the relative effectiveness of the tradfti.nal and c.mmunicative approaches to the teaching of English reading comprehension in developing the reading abilities of Addis Ababa University freshman students. An experiment, in which a sample population of one hundred and forty freshmen in six groups took part, was conducted for six weeks. Three of the groups formed the control group and the other three the · e~erimental~ A pre-test on reading com;rehension was given to both the control and experimental groups to see if there was any significant difference between the reading abilities of the two groups. Statistical tests showed that the differences were not significant. Two sets of teaching materials were prepared for both groups in 'accerdance with the pedagogical principles of the teaching methodologies in qu~ti .n. The control classes were taught reading comprehension in the traditional approach and the experimental classes in the~ .mmunicative approach. Three particirating instructors each taught one control and one experimental class respectively. A comprehension post-test was administered t~ both the control and experimental groups . Statistical tests showed that the average post-test score of the experimental group was significantly greater than that of thecontr.l group. Therefore the null hypothesis that there would not be any Si~lificant difference between the comprehension posttest results of the two groups attributable to the adoption of the communicative approach had to be rejected. The conclusion was drawn that the communicative approach is mere effective than the traditional approach in developing the reading abilities of freshman students at Addis Ababa University.