Browsing by Author "Alemayehu, Tibebe"

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    Communication Strategies Utilized by Omo Tti Trainee-Teachers in Oral Production of English
    (Addis Ababa University, 2007-07) Alemu, Tesfaye; Alemayehu, Tibebe
    This study was carried out to investigate trainee-teachers’ utilization of communication strategies in their oral production of English. Consequently, the study involved eight OMO TTI trainee-teachers. Four of them were from Gamo Department and the other four were from Amharic Department. In order to investigate variation, if any, in utilization of the strategies between female and male trainees, equal number of subjects, i.e. two from each sex, were selected. Thus, they were provided with five different tasks to illicit information. Three of the tasks were grade four lessons which the subjects were supposed to teach to grade four students. The other two tasks were “description of home village” and explaining about “glow worms” which the subjects were expected to talk to English native speakers. Having been provided with these tasks, the subjects were observed while they were presenting the tasks. The observation was aided by video-recording and tape-recording. In the end, the recorded data were transcribed and the types of communication strategies utilized by the subjects were analyzed. The results of the study revealed that almost all the subjects were effective in utilization of communication strategies when they were communicating with the expatriates. However, Amharic trainees were better than Gamo trainees in employing the strategies during the teaching activities. Among trainees of Gamo Department, the male trainees were better than the female trainees. On the other hand, female trainees of Amharic Department were as effective as the male counterparts in the same Department. Despite all these, all the trainees were found to be deficient in their language. Their English language was not to the level that enabled them to teach English.
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    The english language teaching competence of Primary school first-cycle level teachersemphasizing Attitudinal competence
    (Addis Ababa Universiy, 2008-06) Liyew, Wudu; Alemayehu, Tibebe
    Measuring teaching competence has become the central theme of educational policies to safeguard the quality of instruction. Teachers are expected to play their roles in order to satisfy the needs and objectives of their students by providing the best teaching. They need to create positive learning environments. They need to have adequate knowledge in the subject they teach and the necessary skills to communicate the knowledge. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the English language teaching competence of primary school, first-cycle level teachers. The researcher of this study mainly focuses on the teachers' attitudinal competence. Competence is a wide area of professional necessity. Mainly, there are three components of competence which are essential to be effective in teaching. These are attitudinal competence, knowledge competence, and skill competence. These competences have many sub-components. Specifically, the study attempts to: discoveL--the attitude of English language teachers toward their students, identify the attitude of English language teachers toward the English subject, describe the teachers' view of effective English language teaching, understand what the teachers think about a competent English language teacher ,and describe w hat the first- cycle level primary school English language teachers look like in their classes. To achieve the main purpose as well as the specific objectives of this research, fuse mainly three instruments of data collection. These are questionnaire for teachers and students, interview for teachers, and classroom observation. All the 16 English language teachers in the two government primary schools first -cycle level are participated in the study. A closedended questionnaire is prepared for them. This questionnaire consists of five different parts. A sample of 30 students are selected randomly from the two schools of primary first-cycle le vel to fill a closed -ended questionnaire consisting of ten items. These items focus on the English teachers' competence to teach the target language in general, and how they treat their students, positively or negatively. To the interview data, seven English teachers are interviewed voluntarily. The purpose of the semi-structured interview is to verify the validity and reliability of the teachers' responses of the questionnaire items. There are also some general questions about their profession, and specific ones about their students English language learning. During the classroom observations, there are six classes observed in the two schools.
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    An Exploration of the English Proficiency Level of Government and Mission Secondary School Leavers
    (Addis Ababa University, 1987-06) Alemayehu, Tibebe; Despatie, Gerard (PhD)
    Today in Ethiopia, there is a widely heard academic common talk, especially in the tertiary level of learning, about a great variation in the English language proficiency level of governmenu and mission secondary school graduatese The degree of this diffierence has not so far been assessed. The reserch desccibed in this paper attempted to examine whether or not there was a significant difference in the English language proficiency level of government and mission second~y school leavers, usin~ two very well reputed instruments. These instruments are the cloze procedure and the dictation, perhaps the most qualified integrative tests of language proficiency. Since constructing discrete-point proficiency tests is extremely difficult for ordinary classroom teachers, like the writer of this paper, unskilled in the technicalities of dev8loping such tests, these two integrative tests, which are considered to be perhaps equally valid and reliable to measure the language proficiency level of the learner, have been employed as best alternative devices for the purpose. 11.11 the possible necessary cautions essential in developing such tests, have been taken in order to determine the gra~3 level of the cloze and the dictation passages, the Fog Index, one of the formulas currently used for the purpose has been used and according to this formula all the cloze and the dictation passages have a difficulty level of grade 12. In addition to this the personal judgement of English language teachers in the Addis Ababa University, about their fitness, has been considered. They were validated against the Michign Test of English Language Proficiency Form-Bo The results showed that the cloze and the dictation tests used in this paper, correlated at .97. And in order to examine their relinbility the Kuder Richardson formula (Kr-21) has been adopted. This revealed a reliability coefficient of .95 for the cloze ~nd .96 for the dictation tests. The t-test technique was used to evaluate the differences in the Mean scores of each test, so as to assess the extent of the variations in the performance level of English between these two groups of student. The findings showed that there is a singificant difference between government and mission secondary school leavers at p .001 level of confidence. On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that selection for admission of students into the colleges and the universities has to be made on the basis of an English language proficiency test or College Entrance English Language ~xamination, on the basis of which placement of students into an appropriate program of English language learning could be mnde so that each group can learn at a pace commensurate nith its ability. An inquiry to make a thorough revien of the English curriculum of the lower levels has also been made. Further research on the subject has also been invited, so that a reliable solution to the problem can be found.
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    Exploring the Learning Needs of Dilla University Students in EAP Setting: The Case of Second Year English Majors
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-12) Wanna G/Medhin, Wendiyfraw; Alemayehu, Tibebe
    The purpose of the current study is to identi fy th e sub-sk ills with which DU slUdents, particularly 2"" year English maj ors, have much/some difficulty while tak ing the skil l courses. In order to achieve this, different methods were used to coll ect data : questionnaires, tests, document analys is, and interview. Holistic and analytic criteria were used to interpret test scores while a sca le that ranges from 'much difficulty to no difficulty' was used to ident ify subjects' level of performance. In addition, different methods of descri ptive sta tistics such as frequency counts and percentages were used to spec ify learners' difficulties with the sub-sk ill s. The find ings from the tests showed that the study-subjects had experienced 'much difficul ty' and 'some diff iculty' in a number of sub-skills. The sub-sk ills in which most learners had 'much difficul ty' included: word stress, 100%; interaction ski ll 2 (i.e. learners' abil ity to respond appropriately to speech stimulus), 9 1.7%; organi zing ideas, 85.7%; synthesizing ideas, 7 1.4%; using COiTect and complete sentences, 68.6%; recognizing text structure, 65.7%; syntactic ski lls, 62.9%; vocabulary, 62.9%; and joining sentences, 60%. Besides, the sub-ski lls with which most subjects had 'some difficul ty' were: intonation, 100%; scanni ng,82.9%; listening for spec ific detail s, 7 1.4%; pronouncing words, 66.7%; using capitalization correc tly, 65 .7%; distinguishing main ideas from supporting details, 60%; and recognizing discourse markers, 60%. Furthermore, the findings from the tests revea led that subjects belonging to certain categories namely satisfactory performers, low-scorers, students from rural places, and those from uneducated family had ' much difficulty' with most of the sub-sk ills. The fi ndings from the questionnaires, interview, and document analys is suggested that severa l fa ctors constrained the teaching of the skill courses. Some of these included: lack of resources, harsh environment, poor background, and so on. On top of that, th e credit hours for the sk ill co urses were not suff icient in order to meet the programme objecti ves envisaged by the English Department. At the same time, the anal ysis of the course materials in light of lea rners' diffi culties with sub-skill s showed the presence of mi smatch between course materials and learners' needs. Consequently, it was recommended that the cUITiculum, sy ll abi, and course materia ls should undergo complete revision in line with learners' current needs.
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    A Study on the Effectiveness of Teaching-Learning Vocabulary in Three Second Cycle Elementary Schools in Addis Ababa: Grade Eight In Focus
    (Addis Ababa University, 2008-06) Nigussie, Gashaw; Alemayehu, Tibebe
    The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of teaching and learning vocabulary in three second cycle elementary schools of Addis Ababa (grade eight in focus). .This is because the present day high school students’ poor language proficiency is assumed to result particularly from the absence of effective vocabulary teaching techniques and learning strategies at second cycle elementary school level. Hence, the writer decided to examine how effectively vocabulary was taught and learned just before learners started their high school English course. Before the actual process of data collection began, preliminary survey was conducted on some of the common vocabulary teaching techniques prescribed by linguists and language experts. A brief review was also made on the complex nature of vocabulary knowledge. Because teaching alone doesn’t guarantee successful learning, there aroused a need to explore the type of learning strategies learners employ to acquire sufficient English vocabulary. Then data were collected from 90 systematically chosen students and 6 teachers through questionnaire, interview and observation. The textbook was also analyzed to see the extent it encourages to implement a range of vocabulary teaching techniques and learning strategies. Consequently, the results seemed to indicate that teachers, unlike students, believe vocabulary is not such a prominent component of language learning to be given more considerable emphasis during teaching English compared to other aspects. It was also obtained that among a wide rage of techniques of vocabulary instruction, teaching vocabulary through reading texts, synonymy, translation and definition were the most commonly used techniques. However, a close inspection of the actual application of these techniques did not imply effective vocabulary instruction in the subject schools. Although students appeared to be relatively interested in learning vocabulary, practically they were less effective in their effort as they were not able to use a variety of vocabulary learning strategies. Among the major strategies of learning vocabulary, determination strategies (guessing from context and using dictionary) seemed to be used better than social strategies (asking people). However, strategies that promote memory of the previously learned words (memory, cognitive and metacognitive strategies) were not used efficiently. Hence, it was unlikely that students had successfully acquired most of the 512 vocabulary items designed in their textbook