The Use of Vernacular in the Teaching of English: Survey of Addis Ababa Zone Four Junior Secondary Schools
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Date
1988-06
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to find out whether or not teachers
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in Addis Ababa Zone Four Junior Secondary Schools use vernacular while
teaching English, and if they do, to what extent they use it.
Of the junior secondary schools in the zone, six were chosen at
random and from each school, one grade seven English teacher was chosen,
more or less, at random. Each t eacher was recorded, the recording time
depending on the l ength of oral communication within the 40-minute
period.
The steps followed in the analysis of the data, in general were
claBByfi~thewhole discourse into Amharic (vernacular) and English
(medium of instruction) and finding out what share of it is vernacular,
dividing the discourse of each side (teach ers and pupils) into vernacular
and medium of instruction in the same way, and computing frequency
( the number of vernacular words used per minute) for each, and lastly,
classifying the vernacular used into Bellack's four pedagogical moves:
structuring, soliciting, reacting and responding. To facilitate the
understanding of this analysis, full t ext of the four moves is given.
The results show that, of the totil classroom discourse of
teachers and pupils, 71% is English (medium of instruction) and 29%
Amharic (vernacular).
Of the total discourse of teachers, 69 .4% is English and 30.6%
Amharic . Of the tot a l words used by pupils and t eachers, the teachers'
share is 81.9% and the pupils ' share 18.1%. On the whole the pupils
do less than 20% of the talking, and the teachers more than 80% of it.
On the average, about ~ of the t eachers ' total classroom discourse
(30 . 6%) is vernacular, and the tot a l average frequency of thir use of
vernacular is 17.5 words per minute.The results, further, show that the type of English
lesson (passage, vocabulary or grammar), or the type of
excercise (objective or subjective) affect the extent of the
use of vernacular, which varied not only from teacher to
teacher but also from teachers to pupils.
The total average of the teachers' move, in order, is
structuring (59.8) soliciting (24.8), reacting (13.3%), and
responding (2.1%). Generally speaking, almost all the
responses were done by the pupils, and almost all the
solicitations by teachers.
It was thus ooncluded that only ~ of the time alloted
for the teaching of English is really used. The pupils have
developed the habit of hearing in English and speaking in
Amharic. This habit is likely to increase in magnitude
because teachers tend to insist on making the pupils speak
in Amharic even when they are able to speak in E~ish.
Translation also seems to be inefficient because there are
instances of mistranslated and confusion of concepts.
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Use of Vernacular in the Teaching of English