Attitudes Towards Using Amharic And English as Instructional Languages: The Case of Three Private Primary Schools in Bahir Dar
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Date
2012-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main objective of this study is to investigate attitudes of teachers, directors, Parent Teacher
Associations, parents and students towards using Amharic and English as instructional
languages to teaching learning process of Mathematics or Environmental Science subjects in
primary grade levels on Private schools. The specific objectives are to assess capability of
teachers to apply bilingual instructional education, problems on the application of bilingual
instructional education, and reasons behind the application of bilingual instructional education.
This is a descriptive study, which attempted to investigate attitudes of teachers, directors, Parent
Teacher Associations, parents and students towards using Amharic and English as instructional
languages. Data were collected through questionnaires, interview, focus group discussion and
observation. 21 grade 4 Mathematics and Environmental science subjects teachers, 60 parents,
and 54 students participated in the study by filling questionnaires. Interview was conducted with
3 directors. Focus group discussion was also conducted with 18 Parent Teacher Association
members and 54 students. Finally 9 observation sessions were conducted while the teachers
teach the mentioned subjects by Amharic and English languages. The purpose of the above
instruments was to collect data about attitudes of the above-mentioned participants towards
using Amharic and English as instructional languages, capability of teachers, problems, and
reasons towards the application of Amharic and English (bilingual) instructional education.
The result of the data from the four tools was analyzed and described qualitatively and
quantitatively. The data from questionnaires was analyzed by both qualitative and quantitative
method of analysis due to the presence of both open and close-ended questions. The data
gathered from interview, focus group discussion and observation was analyzed qualitatively. The
result shows even though teachers, directors, Parent Teacher Associations, parents and students
have positive attitudes towards using Amharic and English as instructional languages in the
teaching learning process of Mathematics or Environmental Science subjects on learners
primary grade levels, there are many problems including unqualifiedness of one third of teachers
under the application of this practice. In addition, all of the participants have their own reasons
towards the application of bilingual instructional education. Finally, the study comes in to its
end by suggesting some important recommendations.
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Keywords
Instructional Languages