All Analysis of the Reading Skills Employed by Freshman in Reading Amharic and English
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Date
1988-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In this study an effort is made to find out whether Freshmen
slow reading is attributed to the lack of general knowledge of
English or due to the use of Amharic r8ading techniques whil e .
reading English.
To test this, a questionnaire , reading speed and reading
techniques tests were prepared and were administered simultaneously.
The researcher selected 120 students at random for the test.
However, 119 students participated in the exam. The scores were
computed for three groups. The 'ov0rall group' , the 'good' and
'poor' readers groups, and the 'language subgroup' group .
From the scores the overall group performed better in reading
English and~ reading techniques in English at a statistically
significant~evel by 5%. However, since mean values can be
affected by extreme cases, the researcher had also tested the two
li/xtreme readers, that is, ' good ' and '.poor' readers. Primarily, c ~
computations for good readers in both languages showed that good
readers are better at reading Amharic than reading English (221.7
to 177.3). And, the researcher referred to their achievement in reading
techniques in both l anguages to check whether slow reading can
be attributed to transfer from Amharic to English. It was found that
the reading techniques results vlere better in English than in
Amharic (of the same individuals). And, the assumption got l ittle
support .
On the other hand, 'poor' readers have performed , much poorer
than ' average' freshmen understudy, in reading speed, comprehension
and in reading techniques. The ' good' readers have showed a correlation
of (.3, .1) in reading speed and in comprehension in both languages.
Furthermore, the subgroups have performed better in reading
speed than in comprehension, and the scores indicate that there is
moderate correlation between reading in Amharic and r eading in
English specially among Tigrigna and Oromo speakers .
Therefore , on the basis of these findings studento' slow
reading in attributed to lack of comprehension (which is largely
affected by lack of language competence) in FL rather than to•
transfer of techniques from Amharic to English.
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Keywords
Freshman in Reading Amharic and english