An Investigation into Instructional Initiations EFL Textbooks and Teachers use in Secondary Schools Reading Classes: Grades 11 and 12 In Focus.
| dc.contributor.advisor | Alamirew Gebiremariam (PhD) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Yihun Birhanu | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-05-20T10:48:13Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-05-20T10:48:13Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-02 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The objective of this study was to investigate the instructional initiations that EFL textbooks and teachers employ in secondary schools reading classes. The study was conducted based on a multilevel descriptivecase study design. Data were collected through document analysis, classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. Grades 11 and 12 EFL textbooks, English language teachers, and their classroom studentswere participants of the study. Pre-reading instructional initiations and reading comprehension questionsof the textbooks were purposefully selected to answer the first two specific research questions. With regardto the other two specific questions, forty one EFL teacher participants of Abiyot Kirs and Higher 23government secondary schools were involved in the quantitative study. Among these EFL teachers, eightparticipants teaching in grades 11 and 12 classes were selected using stratified random sampling techniquefor the qualitative study. Furthermore, three hundred thirty one students were selected through simplerandom sampling technique from eight sections of the EFL teachers who participated in the qualitativemethod. Then, the findings were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. In so doing, the study has two levels: EFL textbooks and teachers classroom discourses. Descriptive content analysis was the techniqueused to present the qualitative and quantitative findings of the first level. The study followed Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF) classroom interaction pattern to analyze the data collected from classroom observations at the second level. It also employed descriptive statistical analysis of SPSS software topresent the survey data results. Based on the data analyzed, findings of the two levels of the study indicatedthat EFL textbooks and teachers classroom initiations created students inadequate learning opportunitiesin the pre-reading and post-reading stages of teaching reading. The textbooks in particular deprived themof the practices of different pre-reading strategy uses significant to effective reading comprehension. Forinstance, they asked students pre-questions to obtain general comprehension abilities, but not to confirmexpectations, to extract specific information, and to gain detailed or critical reading facilities. With regardto comprehension levels, the textbooks mainly focused on initiations of literal comprehension leveldominated by cognitive demands of recognition/recall of details (L1) and recognition/recall of comparison(L4) sublevels. Though inferential comprehension was the next emphasized level, it was characterized bythe dominance of its fourth sublevel (inference of comparison, I4) which demanded the contextual meaningsof words and the absence of other sublevels (I3, I7, and I8). Additionally, the textbooks gave more attentionto critical thinking skills than the reorganizational comprehension level which comprises of classifying(R1), outlining (R2), summarizing (R3), and synthesizing (R4) sublevels. EFL teachers’ pre-readingclassroom initiations, on the other hand, limited students’ reading learning opportunities to the activation of their world knowledge and denied their reflections resulted from their personal experience and previoustexts read. With respect to their post- reading instructional classroom discourses, EFL teachers initiatedstudents to elicit text-based information despite the inclusion of high order cognitive demands of readingcomprehension questions into the textbooks. Answering own questions and narrowing initial questions werethe other initiating moves with which participant teachers impaired the instructional objectives of teachingreading in the textbooks. The former instructional move resulted from less thanthreeseconds of silent timeteachers had after posing questions and before students answered the comprehension questions. They didnot also initiate students with follow-up questions during whole-class text discussion sessions. Therefore,grounded in the findings of the study, the researcher suggests that material designers should give dueemphasis to the inclusion of different pre-reading instructional initiations and proportional distribution ofreading comprehension sublevels while preparing secondary EFL textbooks. Similarly, EFL teachers needdevelop their classroom interactional competence that students can capitalize on enhancing their generalcomprehension abilities. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/3004 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | |
| dc.subject | EFL text books | |
| dc.title | An Investigation into Instructional Initiations EFL Textbooks and Teachers use in Secondary Schools Reading Classes: Grades 11 and 12 In Focus. | |
| dc.type | Thesis |