Establishing Criteria for Designing an Appropriate English Course for the Yared Music School
No Thumbnail Available
Date
1993-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose or this stu~ was to establish prelimin.ary
criteria tor designing ~ appropriate English course tor the
tared Music School. To achieve this, the existing English
programme of the school was assessed; questionnaires,
interviews and teaching materials were/also used.
Concerning the existing English programme t the results
revealed little or no correspondence between the English
syllabus of the school and the textbooks in use, both in
terms of objectives and contents. More over, it was also
found that to a large measure neither the syUabus nor the
textbooks corresponded with the needs of students.
Question ~aires were distributed to subject teachers, studen~
graduates of the Yared Music Bchool and their employers in which
they were asked to indicate the degree of importance of macroskills
and language activities in their respective contexts.
Students were asked to show the frequency with which they were
required to use macro-skillS and Language activities in learning
other music subjects in general and in learning I selected
corurses of the school. They were also asked to rank 10
selected topic areas of interest they like to be engaged in
in their 3nglish clas3~s. The results indica~ed that for most
ot the four subject groups, the receptive skills, listening and
reading, were regarded as the most important. Next to them,
writing was considered important, followed by speaking in both
academic and occupational contexts.
Similarly, the most important and or frequent language
activities involved the receptive skills. On the whJle, the
findingS showed that for acadamic purposes the important
language activities within each macro-skills were: a)
reading-instructions, textbooks and handouts b) writing taking
notes from lectures, and writing answers to exams
and writing about composers and copositions, c) listinjng understanding
discussions and recordings and d) speaking asking
and answering questions in class. Most~these results
were reaffirmed by both teacher and student interviewees.
Concering the ranking of the topics students unanimoualy
ranked the arts as their most favourite topic and politics as the
least.
For occupational PQrposes the most important language
activities for the students were: a) reading books, journals,
and news papers b) writing notes from books and journals and
from lecturls on seminars and work shops, c) listeningunderstanding
lectures and recordinDs and~peaking-singing
songs and participating in dialogues.
Finally, teaching materials were presented to the 3rd year
students for four weeks. After that questionnaires were distributed
to them and interviews were conducted with randomly
selected stuients of the same group in order to identity their
atti tu4es towards current language teaching techniques. Tbe
results indicated thEt the students had positive attitudes
towards pair and group work. An interview was also conducted
wi th the director of the school who intim.:-''_.atedthat the school,
within its financial limits, was willing to make material as
well as financial support availB,ble to enrich the English
Description
Keywords
for Designing an Appropriate English