Browsing by Author "Gebru, Amanuel"

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    Application of Communicative Language Teaching in Plasma Tv Based English Classrooms: A Study in Two Government Secondary Schools in Addis Ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 2008-06) Belay, Badima; Gebru, Amanuel
    The purpose of this study was to examine the application of communicative language teaching in classrooms learning English via plasma TV in two government secondary schools in Addis Ababa. Descriptive survey method was used to carry out this study. The subjects of the study were one hundred eighty students, sixteen teachers and two principals of Dil Ber and Tikur Anbessa secondary schools. The data gathering tools were questionnaire, interview, classroom observation check list and focus group discussion. The collected data were analyzed by using percentage, mean value and rating scale. The findings of the study revealed that communicative language teaching was not properly implemented in both of the sample schools due to various factors. The major factors were: inappropriate difficulty level of the activities presented by the plasma TV, students’ low proficiency in the language, lack of teachers’ training in teaching English communicatively, inappropriate time allotment for doing the activities, poor classroom physical environment, grammar-based examinations and shortage of curricular materials. Finally, recommendations were forwarded based on the major findings of the study in order to facilitate the effective implementation of communicative language teaching via plasma TV.
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    "Exploring Students' and Teachers' Perceptions on Characteristics of Best EFL Teachers: Bedessa Secondary and Preparatory School (Grades 11 and 12 in Focus)"
    (Addis Ababa Universiy, 2011-05) Bogale, Seifu; Gebru, Amanuel
    This paper presents a research finding that aimed to explore the perceptions held by students and teachers about the characteristics of best EFL teachers and to compare the perceptions held by the two groups on the characteristics of best English language teachers in Bedessa town (Western Hararghe Zone). In this study, 3S preparatory students and 20 English language teachers were involved. The data were collected through a fi vepoint rating scale questionnaire consisting of three categories of effective teaching: English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge and socio-affective ski lls (personal attributes). Overall, the students perceived significantly different characteristics from the teachers in all the three categories with the students' high ranking to pedagogical knowledge and the teachers' high ranking to English proficiency. Both students and teachers believed that a best English teacher should read, write and speak English well, prepare the lesson well, be able to explain things well, use lesson plans properly, provide interesting activities, arouse students' motivation for learning English, build students' self-confidence in order to learn English well, and positive attitudc, bc punctual, encourage students to achieve better, and be helpful to students in and outside the classroom.
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    Gender Differences in Participation in Group Discussions in Freshman English Classes at Addis Ababa University
    (Addis Ababa University, 1996-06) Gebru, Amanuel; Aberra, Hailemichael (PhD)
    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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    Gender Differences in Participation in Group Discussions in Freshman English Classes at Addis Ababa University
    (1996-06) Gebru, Amanuel; Aberra, Hailemichael (PhD)
    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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    Organizational Communication Satisfaction: The Case of Oromia Regional State Government Communication Affairs Bureau
    (Addis Ababa University, 2014-11) Negewo, Fikru; Gebru, Amanuel
    The principal aim of this study was assessing the organizational communication satisfaction in Oromia regional state government communication affairs bureau. The research was undertaken in the form of a case study with the research essentially combining qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. The research data was collected by means of three methods of data collection, namely the survey questionnaire, in-depth interview and participant observation. The study found that the overall organizational communication satisfaction in Oromia regional state government communication affairs bureau was below the standard of organizational communication satisfaction which shows weak organizational communication satisfaction. According to the result of the study from all dimension of organizational communication satisfaction the employees show the greatest satisfaction towards the horizontal/coworker communication. The employees show greatest satisfaction with the other employees at their level or peer to peer communication in the organization. In addition, the study found that there were sufficient forums and meeting for the communication to exist though employees seldom get feedback when they communicate to managers. Managers were not interested in hearing employee suggestions and poor integration between all communication-related issues, including interdepartmental interaction and co-ordination. As the study found the communication flows from top down and the limited informal communication in the organization, the study recommends developing informal and multidirectional communication in the organization to increase the relationship between employees which can increase communication satisfaction between employees in the organization.
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    Participation Of Female Students In Mixed And Single-Sex Group Discussions In Efl Classes At Adama Teachers Training College
    (AAU, 2007-02) Kasaye, Abera; Gebru, Amanuel
    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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    The Relationship between Communication Climate and Psychological Safety: A study of the World Vision in Addis Ababa
    (AAU, 2021-06) Tsegaye, Fikru; Gebru, Amanuel
    The research paper attempted to explore bi-variate associations between communication climate and psychological safety on sample size of 194 collected from World Vision Ethiopia, Addis Ababa from professional employees who amounts to 347. Gibb’s (1961) conceptualization of communication climate and Costigan & Schmeidler (1984) operationalization of it was employed. Edmondson (1999) defined and operationalized psychological safety. The Likert scale data analysis reveals a positive monotonic relationship with communication climate and psychological safety. A Spearman correlation for the data revealed a significant relationship between communication climate and state of psychological safety, r = +.504, n = 194, p < .01, two tails. A Spearman Correlation Coeffient of p=0.504 is large in terms of magnitude of effect size and represents a large associations (Cohen, 1988). The corresponding coefficient of determination (r2) is 25.4, indicating that 25.4% of the variability of the communication climate can be predicted from the relationship with psychological safety. Moreover, variable-to-variable correlations shows that appreciation is positively related with all variables of supportive communication behavior while mutual trust is negatively associated with all variables of defensive communication behavior. Overall, the majority of respondents (79.9%) perceptions reveal that there is open, supportive and respectful communication in the organization. The feeling of psychological safety also found out to be high. Most of the Employees (62.9%) feel confident and safe to speak up with the concerns they have without being afraid of negatives consequences. Nevertheless, the research study determined behaviors of defensive communication climate: Superiority, neutrality, control, and psychological safety team norms: reaction to mistakes and accepting diversity for priority intervention. The research study suggested some measures to counter these behaviors, boost the supportive communication behaviors, and team psychological safety.
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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) Firew, Melkamu; Gebru, Amanuel
    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.