An Evaluation of the Design and Implementation of Grammar Practice A ctivities/ Exercises in Grade Nine
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which the grammar
practice activities/ exercises in grade nine English textbook (Revised edition, 2005) are
designed and utilized in such a way that they meet the principles of communicative
language teaching ( or the objectives of teaching English at grade nine). in other
words, the pUipose was to see the extent to which the grammar practice exercises are
communicative or interactive. The study was particularly targeted at analyzing and
evaluating the grammar practice activities/ exercises using the criteria: their relevance
to the objectives of teaching English at grade nine, their suitability to students' interest
and level, the emphasis given to the aspects of grammar (i.e. form, meaning and use),
context, approaches (i.e. deductive or inductive), authenticity, the variety of the
activities, their adequacy for practice and their grading. In addition, attention was
given to the evaluation of the implementation (methodological procedures or options)
of grammar practice activities/ exercises in EFL classrooms particularly in three
secondary schools of Addis Ababa city Administration.
The required data for the study were gathered through the analysis of the grammar
practice exercises in the textbook, questionnaires (teachers' and students,) and
classroom observations. To analyze and interpret the data, the researcher used both the
qualitative and quantitative methods.
The findings of this study generally indicate that almost all the teachers present a new
grammar item deductively in decontextualized separate sentences; the vast majority of
the grammar exercises in the textbook are form-focused, individual activities and do not
occur in contexts; communicative and inductive granunar exercises are almost nonexistent.
In addition, more than half of the students responded that the exercises are
difJicult and not interesting to them. Classroom observations also indicated that class
time was dominated by teacher~fi'onted mode of teaching, while pair and group work
activities were rarely used in most of the classes observed. Therefore, the students were
not given the opportunity to interact among and between them. Due to this, it was
generally concluded that the design and the implementation (or pel/ormance) of the
grammar practice exercises are not in harmony with the insights gained Fom the
theories and practices of the communicative language teaching (CLT). In other words,
the grammar exercises are not found to be meaningfiti and communicative activities as
it was claimed by the textbook writers.
Finally, it is recommended that the Ministry of Education, textbook writers, teacher
trainers and teachers should exert a maximum effort for designing communicative
grammar tasks and for conducting workshops, seminars and otherforms of training on
the presentation and practice of a grammar point
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Keywords
Design and Implementation of Grammar