A Comparison of the Reading Level of Bahir Dar Teachers' College Freshman Students With the Reading Levels Expected of Them
No Thumbnail Available
Date
1998-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study is primarily to find out the gap bet\;een
the actual r eading ability and whut is expected of the Bahir Dar Teachers'
College freshman s tudents in their s ubj ect area t ext books. Its
secondary purpose is to investigate whether a significant difference
exists between and among the groups of t he sampl e population due to some
variables .
In order to accomplish this goal , eleven degree and seventeen
diploma English students, sixteen degree and thirty-four diploma
Geography students totalling seventy- eight werc taken as it sample
population r epresenting the social science fres hman students.
Six passages from English for New Ethiopia series were taken for
both department students and three passages related to their fie ld
of studies for each department st udents were cposen based on the
instructions r ecommended by Fry; s (1968) formu l a (graph). Cloze and
comprehension tests were set and administered to the sample population
and the n ecessa~y statistical data were obtained us ing a computer.
Bes ides, cloze and comprehension error ana lyses of the student,'
responses were done. ~~il e the result of tho cloze analys i s indicat es
that the students l ack an adequate knowledge of the English grammar
and sufficent vocabulary stock, t he analysis of the comprehension
question r esponses show that they are deficient in t he higher
comprehension skills.
Apart from the cloze and comprehension tests, a questionnaire
was administered to see whether di fferences exi s t between the groups
due to the variables s t ated in the questionnaire. The r esult, however , indicates no 5i~nificant differenc<: amon" t he rrouns exc'Opt for
two cases.
In peneral , the result of t~e study reveals that the ~ctual r eading
abili ty of the two dep:lrtl'HJnt students enables theP1 t o read t ext books
of grade four dHf iculty levels with tl'.€ h€lp of it teacher. This
implies that the students' r eadinr ability is far l'elo\'l the expected
standard and the problem is acute.
The researcher hopes that the concerned autho~ities s~ould do
somethinp. in order t o solve the nroblem
Description
Keywords
Reading Level of Bahir Dar Teachers'