Browsing by Author "Hailu, Alemu"

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    High School Teachers' Attitudes Towards An Awareness-Raising Approach To Vocabulary Teaching
    (AAU, 1994-06) Hailu, Alemu; Addamu, Taddele (Phd)
    This study is an attempt to inves ti ga te to what ex tent the teaching and learning of vocabulary by an awareness-raising approach would be considered feasible and acceptable to teachers in high schools . For this investigation, thus, materials represen ting an approach of a different nature to that cu rren tly practised in high schools were collected from di fferent sources. The subjects were made to study th ese materials for three to five days . To determine their attitudes towards the materials at an initial stage and how acceptable or feas ible the activities might be, a ques tionnaire was issued to all the subjects and interviews were conducted with some . Reactions to the materials at this stage were based on past experience, teaching habits , traditional ex pectations, etc . Following this , the researcher arranged practice teach ing sessions in which the use of the tasks was demons trated in typical high school classes while the subjects observed. The same questionnaire was admin istered again and every subject was made to ex press his feelings about the approach . Reactions at this stage were based, on the one hand, on r e flections on the materials in stage 1 and any modification of attitudes that migh t have taken place at this stage and, on the oth er, on the reac tion to observations of the materials and the approach used in the class room . T he emphasis was to find out the degree to wh ich teachers can modify their attitudes in itially throu gh exposure to materials representing a diJferentappr6ach and throu gh observations of such materials being taugh t . Th ere for e, a comparison V.·'lS made between tedchers' I J .. , , initial reactions to the first questionnaire and their attitudes as expressed during discussions and in the same questionnaire administered pas t-teaching. The result of the f indings shows that teachers could modify their attitudes in a fairly short period of time. The teachers also r eported that an awareness-raising approach to vocabulary learning would be acceptable and feas ib le in high school situation. But they hod no much confidence about the value of such on approach in fac ilitating learners' learnings of new lex ical items. On the bases of these findings, it is concluded th at it is possible to introduce an awareness-raising approach to vocabulary learning in new textbooks for high school classes. Finally, recommendations are made.
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    A Study of Secondary School EFL Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and Classroom Practices
    (Addis Ababa University, 2012-07) Simegn, Birhanu; Hailu, Alemu
    In order to understand the reality of the classroom and improve the teaching process, researching into teachers’ beliefs about their professional activities has been acknowledged in mainstream education in general and in language education in particular (Borg, 2006). This study investigated secondary school EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and classroom practices. It specifically examined the instructional practices the teachers conducted in classrooms and the beliefs they hold about English teaching profession, English teaching and learning, and the contextual factors. The study used questionnaire, classroom observation, interviews of pre and post classroom observation, and lesson plan analysis for data collection. The findings revealed the teachers’ unrealistic interest and competence in their English teaching profession. That is, the teachers seemed to think that they were merely interested in English teaching profession and were competent for conducting classroom instructions effectively though the classroom observation data failed to confirm such professional interest and competence. The result also indicated the teachers’ shallow theoretical and practical conceptions of the communicative language teaching. In other words, the teachers did not seem to have clear ideas about the focus of the instruction, the roles of teachers and students, the nature of teaching materials, the type of classroom organization and management in employing communicative language teaching in their classrooms. Thus, the teachers’ classroom instructions revealed routine pattern of procedures (presentation, monitoring and discussion) that did not seem to reflect their mere pedagogical conception, communicative language teaching. Moreover, the teachers’ considered students’ limited language capacity and interest in learning the language as the major contextual factor affecting the teaching and learning process. Thus, it is recommended that the teachers need to have more theoretical and practical exposure of the English teaching profession and CLT mainly through reflective teaching and action research.