No abstract

This quasiexperimental study was conducted in order to see the impact of training in Information Communication Technology- (ICT-) assisted English language teaching on secondary school English language teachers’ knowledge, skills, and practice of using ICT tools for teaching English. To this end, a one group within-subject quasi-experimental design was applied. The study included 20 teachers from Hawassa City Administration in Sidama Regional State of Ethiopia using availability sampling. Repeated measures data were obtained using tests and questionnaires and analyzed quantitatively by using SPSS version 25. Friedman’s test was computed so as to compare the related samples’ mean scores for the tests as well as questionnaires. Related-samples Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was computed on the SPSS in order to see the magnitude of the effect of the training. The results showed training in ICT-assisted English language teaching significantly improves teachers’ knowledge and skills of ICT tools for teaching English and their practice of using ICT tools in teaching English. Recommendations were made in view of that. To be specific, there are needs for teacher training in information communication technology-supported English language teaching.

The present study was intended to analyze the Ethiopian Federal TVET Institute trainees’ academic and professional needs of the English language and its relevance to their needs. In the study, descriptive design was employed and data collection tools, namely close-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and content analysis were used. Eighty trainees and 30 former graduates were included using simple random sampling technique to fill in questionnaires and for interviews two major course trainers and two former graduates among those who filled in the questionnaires were selected using the same sampling technique, and all the available (4) Communicative English Skills course instructors were included. Moreover, Communicative English Skills I and II course materials/modules were also analyzed to examine the relevance of the courses to meet the trainees’ academic and professional needs. The questionnaires data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitative data were analyzed using thematic data analysis methods. The study showed that reading technical course books, lecture handouts and  examination papers, taking lecture notes, writing organized paragraphs concisely, exam answers, term papers and researches, presenting project reports and seminars orally in the classroom, and listening to lectures and technical conversations are the most frequently needed English sub-skills by the trainees. The findings also showed that most of the language contents are not compatible with the trainees’ English language needs. Thus, the teaching material currently in use lacks topical/thematic relevance to the trainees’ fields of study in almost all the units. The findings might have implications for ESP material developers and course designers.

This study investigated the relationship between students’ attitude (cognitive, affective and behavioral) towards vocabulary learning and their English vocabulary knowledge (breadth, depth and fluency) with reference to Grade 9. It employed a correlational research design and simple random sampling and stratified sampling techniques. Pearson’s r was computed to examine the relationship between each of the three aspects of students’ attitude towards vocabulary learning and their breadth, depth and fluency of English vocabulary knowledge. The coefficient of determination (r2) was calculated and multiplied by 100 to give a percentage value to examine how a difference in one variable is predicted by the difference in another variable. The findings show that there is a very strong positive relationship between students’ attitude towards vocabulary learning and their breadth of English vocabulary knowledge, but a strong positive relationship for a few aspect of breadth of vocabulary knowledge. A moderate positive relationship was found between the students’ attitude towards vocabulary learning and their depth of English vocabulary knowledge, but a weak positive relationship between their cognitive and affective aspects of attitude and their knowledge of some aspects of depth of vocabulary knowledge. There is a moderate positive relationship between each aspect of students’ attitude towards vocabulary learning and their fluency of English vocabulary knowledge. It is also found that the students’ attitude towards vocabulary learning predicts their breath, depth and fluency of English vocabulary knowledge by 77.44%, 26.3169% and 35.76% respectively (maximum values). Lastly, appropriate recommendations were made based on the conclusions of the study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between students’ metacognitive reading strategy use and reading performance in English. The participants of the study were 32 randomly selected summer scheme 2019 academic year undergraduate Sidama language and literature trainees who took several English language courses including reading skills courses. To collect the necessary data for the study, the researchers utilized Mokhtari and Sheorey’s (2002) Survey of Reading Strategies and a reading comprehension test. Hence, it is a correlational study. A Bivariate Pearson correlation was conducted to examine the degree and direction of association between the subjects’ use of reading strategy and their reading performance in English. Besides, means and standard deviations were computed to determine the level of applying the metacognitive strategies by the subjects. In both of the analyses, the researchers used the SPSS version 20. The findings showed that the participants are active users of all three types of reading strategies (global, problem-solving and support strategies) measured by the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS), problem-solving strategies were the most preferred and support strategies the least preferred. Conversely, the Pearson correlation analysis results showed that there is no statistically significant relationship between the overall metacognitive reading strategy use and the total score of the student’s general reading test performance (r = 0.112, p = 0.585). It is, therefore, concluded that the students are high reading strategy users of all three types of reading strategies, but there is an insignificant correlation with their reading performance where this inconsistency may be partly attributed to unguided or unconscious usage of reading strategies. Keywords: metacognitive, reading strategies, reading performance, correlation