An Investigation Of English Language Teachers' Reading

Lesson Presentation In Terms Of The New Coursebook For

Grade Nine In Some Selected Government Secondary
Schools In Addis Ababa




By
Melkamu Dumessa



A Thesis Submitted To The School Of Graduate Studies Addis Ababa University In
Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Arts In Tefl





June 2002
Addis Ababa


Addis Ababa University
School Of Graduate Studies

An Investigation of English Language Teachers' Reading Lesson
Presentation in Term of the New Coursebook for Grade Nine in Some
selected Government Secondary Schools in Addis Ababa

By
Melkamu Dumessa

Approved By Board of Examiners:
Advisor Signature
Taye Ragassa (Ph. D)
Examiner Signature
Gebremedhin Simon (Ph.D)
Examiner Signature
Berhanu Bogale (Ph.D)

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my advisor Dr. Taye Regassa
for his constructive comments, detailed advice and professional guidance.
Without his continuous follow-up and encouragement, the completion of this
thesis would have been inconceivable

I also owe a great deal to Dr. Gebremedhin Simon for his fruitful comments
on some parts of this thesis.

I would like to extend my thankfulness to Abebe Kenno, Dereje Fufa,
Gezahegn Berecha and Denekew Abera and Dirriba Megersa who were always
ready to give me their warm-hearted encouragement, friendship and support.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the contribution of the teachers and the
students who responded to the questionnaires of this thesis and the teachers
I observed their reading classes in particular.





Table of Contents
Page
Chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Background of the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the problem 2
1.3 Objective of the Study 6
1.4 Significance of the Study 7
1.5 Scope of the Study 8
1.6 Limitation of the Study 8
Chapter 9
2. Review of Related Literature 9
2.1 What is Reading? 9
2.2 The three Main Models of Reading 11
2.2.1Bottom-up Model of Reading 11
2.2.2 Top-down Model of Reading 13
2.2.3 Interactive Model of Reading 14
2.3 Schema Theory of Reading 16
2.4 Classroom Procedures in Teaching Reading 18
2.4.1 Pre Reading Phase 18
2.4.1.1 Activating Students' Prior Knowledge 19
2.4.1.2 Establishing Purpose for Reading 21

2.4.1.3 Previewing a text to build expectations 23
2.4.2 Reading Phase 24
2.4.2.1 Guessing meanings 25
2.4.2.1.1 Guessing meanings from contexts ---------26
2.4.2.1.2 Guessing meanings using word building
process---------------------------------------27
2.4.2.2 Recognizing text organization 28
2.4.3 Post Reading phase 30
2.4.3.1 Comprehension questions 30
2.5. Skimming------------------------------------------------------------------------33
2.6. Scanning------------------------------------------------------------------------34
Chapter 36
3. Methodology and Procedures of the Study 36
3.1 Subjects of the Study 36
3.2 Instruments of Data Collection 38
3.2.1 Questionnaires 38
3.2.2. Observation 38
3.3 Procedures of the Study-------------------------------------------------39
Chapter 42
4. Presentation and Discussion of the Data 42
4.1Background information 42
4.2 Pre-reading phase of lesson presentation 45

4.3 While-reading phase of lesson presentation 56
4.4 Post-reading phase of lesson presentation 74
Chapter 89
5. Conclusions and recommendations 89
5.1 Conclusions 89
5.2 Recommendations 95
Bibliography 97
Appendices 105
A. Questionnaire for Teachers 105
B. Observation Checklist 110
C. Table 5: Observed Frequency of English Teachers Reading Lesson
Presentation 113
D. Questionnaire for Students----------------------------------------------- ------ 114











List of Tables
Table page
1. Teachers' Responses Regarding the Use and Usefulness of the
New Teacher's Book in Teaching Reading Lessons-------------------------43
2. Teachers' and Students' Responses Concerning Pre-reading Lesson
Presentation----------------------------------------------------------------------47
3. Teachers' and Students' Responses Regarding While-reading Lesson
Presentation---------------------------------------------------------------------58
4. Teachers' and Students' Responses Concerning Post-reading Lesson
Presentation--------------------------------------------------------------------75

Abstract

The central intention of this research was to examine grade nine English teachers
reading lesson presentation in relation to the introduction of the new course book in
Addis Ababa. To attain this objective, descriptive research method was employed.
What is more, twenty- five, grade nine English language teachers in Addis Ababa
were selected using availability sampling from five secondary schools randomly
selected from Region 14 twenty high schools.

Necessary data was gathered using questionnaires and observation. In addition,
these data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency and
percentage.

The result of this study revealed that most of the subjects rarely or never present
reading lessons in line with the procedures prescribed in the new Teachers Book. As
a result the three phases of reading lesson presentation procedures suggested in the
new textbook for teaching reading were rarely or not at all practiced in grade nine in
Addis Ababa.
Moreover, the study depicted that English teachers reading lesson presentation
practice was dominated by traditional approach of teaching reading. Thus, there is a
mismatch between the prescribed procedures in the new Teachers Book and the
teachers actual classroom reading lesson presentation practice.
1
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

According to Harrison (1996) designing a new syllabus with a new coursebook and
putting it to use does not necessarily effect a change in the teachers' classroom
practices. For instance Nunan (1988:141) has rightly observed "the frequent
mismatch between the planned and the implemented curriculum in the actual
classrooms." Similarly, substantiating this idea Widdowson (1990), Breen (1989),
and Kochhar (1985) pointed out that developing teaching materials alone does not
necessarily guarantee the attainment of the objective unless it is put to practice
through appropriate methodology in the classrooms. In addition, with regard to this
point, Candlin (1988:xi) stated, "innovation in the language teaching classrooms is
often hindered by the lack of explicit illustration of good practice." This shows that
the innovation or change in teaching materials does not bring the desired change
expected in the language teaching and learning programme if not implemented
properly. In connection with this view, Nunan (1989) argued that the learners
classroom experiences will be more important than statements of intent in
determining learning outcomes. This means classroom practice plays a decisive role
in the students success or failure in the learning process. Thus, concerning the
significant role of classroom experiences, Allwright and Bailey (1991:xv) have the
following to say:

2
. . . no matter how much intellectual energy is put into
the invention of new methods (or of new approaches to
syllabus design and so on), what really matters is what
happens when teachers and learners get together in the
classrooms.

A similar idea that goes with the above view, is forwarded by Widdowson (1990).
He proposed that,
. . .changes in a syllabus as such need have no effect on
learning whatever. They will only do so if they inspire
the teacher to introduce methodological innovations in
the classroom, which are consistent in some way with the
conceptions of content and the principles of ordering
proposed in the new syllabus (1990:129).

This means, Widdowson suggested that teachers who execute the innovated or
revised syllabus should have a good knowledge of how to put into practice the
specified contents in line with the approach the teaching materials favour.

1.2 Statement of the problem

English language syllabus for grade nine has been revised recently. On the basis of
the syllabus a new coursebook with communicative orientation has been prepared
and is now in use across the nation.

The writers of this new coursebook claim "every opportunity has been taken to
involve the students in meaningful and realistic communicative activities" (Grade 9
Teacher's Book 1995:7). Similarly Berhanu Haile (1999) maintains that the new
coursebook for grade nine is more student-oriented and communicatively designed
3
than the former ENE textbook series. What is more, concerning the reading lessons
in the new coursebook, Atkins et al. (1996:55) described it as "a reading approach
to the teaching of reading."

Thus, the introduction of this coursebook for implementation necessitates change in
the teachers' way of lesson presentation in general and reading lesson in particular.
This is due to the fact that a change in the approach of a textbook would in turn
lead to a shift of paradigm in lesson presentation and hence, in that of the reading
lessons. In connection with this view, Alvermann and Moore (1991:973) noted that
materials play a role in determining reading lesson practice.

In conformity with the above view, the teacher's guide for the new coursebook for
grade nine suggests pedagogical procedures that English language teachers should
follow to implement the comprehension sections in the coursebook. However, the
teachers are encouraged to use any alternative techniques that they have found to
be effective in presenting the reading lessons. For instance, the following general
procedure is suggested as a basic systematic approach in grade nine Students'
Books:
1. Introducing the passage
2. Skimming and/or scanning
3. Reading the passage
4. Discussing the passage
4
5. Answering comprehension questions
6. Follow-up activities
The reading section in all the units of the Students' Book is divided into two sections:
the comprehension and the reading section. The comprehension section comes first
in all of the units and contains the text for intensive reading and study. This means,
the text in the comprehension section is the main focus for the topic of the unit. It
is the basis for the activities in the other sections of the unit. In other words, the
passage in this section is meant for intensive study, i.e. for closer and careful
handling of reading comprehension than the extensive reading text provided for
pleasure reading in the reading section at the end of every unit of the new
coursebook (Grade 9 Teacher's Book 1995:9-10).

Hence, the reading skills are mainly treated in the comprehension section of the new
coursebook. The comprehension section includes activities such as "Skimming and
scanning, vocabulary extension, oral and written comprehension, oral
communication, note taking, interpreting, completing and producing tables and
diagrams" (Grade 9 Teachers Book 1995:10).

Accordingly, the comprehension section of the current ELT coursebook
accommodates reading strategies like pre-reading discussion questions, skimming
and/or scanning, reading and post-reading discussion.

5
There are many local studies conducted in the areas of teaching reading. These
researches focus on content area reading, reading speed, reading preferences,
readability of coursebooks, students' reading strategies and study of reading lesson
classroom practices to mention some of them. For example, Abdu (1993)
conducted his M.A. research on reading preferences of grade 11 students in Addis
Ababa. Similarly, Berhe (1989) studied the readability level of grade 10 textbook
and the comprehension ability of the students who used the textbook. Likewise, the
study by Getachew (1996) described the practice of teaching reading in grade 11 in
Addis Ababa.

All of these studies were conducted based on or related to the structurally designed
old ENE textbook series which have been recently replaced by communicatively
oriented new coursebook throughout secondary schools in Ethiopia.

However, revising syllabuses and writing teaching materials alone do not ensure the
attainment of the objective set and the students profile expected after the course.
This is because the syllabus and/or the coursebooks serve only as a blueprint of
action, which may or may not be put into practice as mentioned in the background.

Hence, it is with this background that the study tries to investigate whether there is
a match/mismatch between the pedagogical procedures suggested in the new
6
Teacher's Book to teach reading skills to ninth graders and the teachers' actual
classroom reading lesson presentation in some selected schools in Addis Ababa.

1.3 Objective of the Study


The teachers' actual classroom practice is worth investigating to form a clear picture
of what happens in the classroom based on the recent change in the ELT teaching
materials.

Therefore, this research tries to investigate the English language teachers' reading
lesson presentation in grade nine in light of the introduction of the current ELT
coursebook.

To this effect I have formulated the following research questions:
1. How do English language teachers present a reading lesson on the basis
of the recent change in the ELT coursebook?
2. Is there any marked shift of paradigm in reading lesson presentation
practice as a result of the introduction of new coursebook?
3. Is there any gap between the pedagogical suggestions for the reading
lesson presentation in the teachers' guide and the teachers' actual
classroom reading lesson practice?

7
1.4 Significance of the Study


The new coursebook, which has been designed recently within the framework of
communicative approach to language teaching, is now in use in all secondary
schools in the country.

In relation to this, investigating the English language teachers reading lesson
presentation practice in the classroom as a result of the introduction of the new
coursebook is important to get a clear picture of how teachers are implementing
reading lessons in the new coursebook for grade nine at secondary schools
currently.

To this end, the result of this study is believed to have potential contribution to the
following four groups:
1. Textbook writers in the Curriculum Department of Ministry of Education who
may use it to modify and improve teaching materials that facilitates students
reading abilities.

2. Teacher trainers and educators who have a role in teaching and training to
improve reading practices.

3. English teachers who can use the results to reflect on their practices to
improve their reading lesson presentation.
8

4. Finally, researchers who are interested in classroom practices may use the
findings as a stepping-stone for further investigation that could lead to the
improvement of teaching reading in grade nine.

1.5 The Scope of the Study


This study strictly limits itself to an investigation of grade nine English language
teachers' reading lesson presentation as a result of the introduction of the new
coursebook. In other words, the study focuses on examining whether there is a
match between the prescribed procedures in the new textbook for presenting
reading lessons and teachers actual reading lesson presentation in grade nine at five
secondary schools in Addis Ababa

1.6 Limitation of the Study

It would have been better to increase the number of the subjects in this study.
However, due to time and financial constraints, the study was limited to an
investigation of twenty-five grade nine English language teachers available at five
randomly selected secondary schools in Addis Ababa. That is to say the
questionnaire was administered to twenty-five English language teachers and of
these only five teachers actual reading lesson presentations were observed twenty
times.

9
CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1What is Reading?


It is not as such easy to give a succinct definition for the word 'reading'. This is
because as Perfetti (1985:4) suggested reading incorporates intricate process of
visual, linguistic and cognitive activities. In the same vein, Aebersold and Field
(1997:5) noted that "the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily
described." Similarly, Smith (1978) suggested the uneasiness of giving a single
clear-cut definition for reading as follows:
Reading is not different from all the other common words
in our language, it has a multiplicity of meanings. And
since the meaning of the word on any particular occasion
will depend largely on the context in which it occurs, we
shouldn't expect that a single definition for reading will be
found . . . (1978:100).

Despite this fact, some authorities have tried to define reading in various ways based
on different views of reading models. For example, Carrell (1988:2) defined reading
as "a decoding process of reconstructing the writer's meaning through recognizing
the letters and words, and creating a meaning for a text from the smallest textual
units at the 'bottom' (letters and words) to larger and larger units at the 'top'
phrases, clauses, (intersentential linkages)." This means reading is a mere decoding
of graphic representation by matching letter - sound relationships.
In the same manner, Goodman(1971) cited in Carrell and Eisterhold (1988:75)
proposed another definition. According to Goodman, reading is "a psycholinguistic
10
guessing game" in which reader reconstructs meaning from a minimal text sample
by relying on his/her knowledge of the language and the background knowledge of
the subject through cycles of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming what has
been encoded by the writer(s).

Another definition of reading is suggested in the interactive view of reading. In fact,
contemporary interactive approaches to reading extend and elaborate
psycholinguistic theory by focusing precisely on the important role of cognition in an
interaction between the reader and the text. Thus, McKenna and Robinson
(1993:21) defined that "reading is an interactive process in which a reader's prior
knowledge of the subject and purpose for reading operate to influence what is
learned from text." Likewise, Grabe (1988:56) citing Widdowson (1979) further
defined reading as ". . . the process of combining textual information with the
information a reader brings to a text" This means, in other words, reading is an
interactive process in which a reader uses his/her background knowledge to draw
meaning out of a printed text in view of his/her reason for reading.

According to Silberstein (1994:7) interactive approaches emphasize that meaning
does not fully lie in the text to be decoded. Rather meaning is created through the
negotiation between a reader and a text. This means a reader is an active
participant in the reading process in which he/she makes predictions and form
11
expectations from his/her prior knowledge, which he/she confirms or rejects while
reading. Concerning this view, Grabe (1988:56) writes:
. . . it is one in which the reading activates a range of
knowledge in the reader's mind that he/she uses and
that, in turn, may be refined and extended by the new
information supplied by the text. Reading is thus viewed
as a kind of dialogue between the reader and the text.

This interactive process of reading reflects that a reader should toil hard to draw
meaning out of a text employing different reading strategies such as skimming,
scanning, predicting etc. Hence, in this process of reading, there is active
interpretive interaction between the reader, the writer and the text.

In short, all of the definitions we have seen so far describe or reflect the different
views of reading models developed by various reading researchers through time.
Therefore, it seems important to discuss these models of reading in order to have a
clear picture of reading process and the definitions we have seen above.

2.2 THE THREE MAIN MODELS OF READING
2.2.1 BOTTOM-UP MODEL OF READING

One of the early reading research works has developed a bottom-up model of
reading process as a mere decoding of graphic prints. In other words, the bottom-
up model, describes reading as a process of matching letter-sound relationships to
derive meaning out of a printed page working from a single letter up to the stretches
of sentences (Carrell 1988; Dubin and Bycina 1991; Nuttall 1996; Nunan 1989; and
12
Wallace 2001). Hence, this view of reading regards the reader as passive recipient
of information whereby he/she simply absorbs the meaning, which resides in the
text exclusively through graphic decoding process alone (Nuttall 1996; and Carrell
1988). In the same manner, McDonough and Shaw (1993:16)) expressed the
bottom-up model as "a one way traffic system in which everything flows in one
direction only." This clearly expresses that the reader simply absorbs the meaning
that the writer puts in a text plodding through the text starting from the letters up to
sentences (Davies 1995; Nuttall 1996; and Nunan 1989; Carrell 1988). By the same
token, explaining this model a bit further, Wallace (2001:22) contends that the
bottom-up model of reading emphasizes, "text based features" at word and
sentences level. Moreover in McDonough and Shaw (1993:16) the reader is
considered as "empty vessel" that is simply filled in with the information the writer
provides to him/her.

As a result, the bottom-up model of reading was found to be unsatisfactory to
encapsulate the reading process as it underrates the role of the reader and what
he/she brings into play to interact with the writer on the basis of his/her background
knowledge of the world and the language systems (Nuttall 1996; Wallace 2001; and
Carrell 1988).



13

2.2.2 TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING
Following the inadequacy of the bottom-up model, reading specialists built another
new mode, which is known as top down model to explain the reading process
(Samuels and Kamil 1988). This new model tried to compensate the shortcomings
of the earlier model (i.e. bottom-up process of reading). The top-down model of
reading emphasizes the role of the reader and the background knowledge he/she
brings to the text to negotiate meaning rather than that of the printed page. The
reader in this view actively predicts meanings of the text through sampling larger
chunks of the text at a time instead of decoding individual letters on the page to
extract meaning from it (Nuttall 1996; and Wallace 2001).

Unlike bottom-up model, the top-down one views the reader as active information
processor rather than mere information absorber from the text. This view of reading
has posited the active role to a reader where he/she processes information in the
text via his/her background knowledge to derive meaning from the printed page
(Hirvela 1996; and Wallace 2001). Therefore, the top-down view of reading focuses
on the reader's prior knowledge interaction with the textual stimuli through
hypothesis formation and sampling larger chunks of the text Goodman (1971) cited
in (Carrell and Eisterhold 1988). Furthermore, Wallace (2001) suggested that the
top-down approach to reading stresses the contribution of the reader's background
knowledge of the world and the language systems to extract meaning from the text
14
instead of the "word - based" bottom-up style of reading process. This means, to
put it in another way the top-down process of reading is a reader-based approach
while the bottom-up process is a text-based one.

By the same token Samuels and Kamil (1988) pointed out that in the top-down view
of reading process, a reader samples the text and verifies hypothesis and
predictions, which is conceptually driven by the higher-order skills rather than by
lower-level stimulus analysis.

However, top-down model of reading has made a major advancement in the
conceptualization of reading, it is not self-contained model to explain reading
process. This model pays greater attention to higher order skills such as predicting
meaning on the basis of the background knowledge; however, it neglects the
perceptual and decoding process of reading that fluent readers bring into play in
processing textual information (Wallace 2001; and Eskey 1988). These defects of
the top-down process of reading led researchers to develop another model that
attempts to explain reading in a better way.

2.2.3 INTERACTIVE MODEL OF READING

As a result of the limitations of the top-down model of reading process, many
reading experts in the 1980's proposed a newer and more insightful model of
15
reading in the communicative approach to language teaching which combines the
two earlier views of bottom-up and top-down process of reading the interactive
model of reading (Wallace 2001; Davies 1995; and Grabe 1988).

The interactive reading process underscores the interaction between the bottom-up
process and the top-down view of reading to reconstruct meaning from the text
(Eskey, 1988; Widdowson 1979; Mera 1999 McDonough and Shaw 1991; Dubin and
Bycina 1991).

Elaborating how this model works in facilitating reading comprehension, Dubin and
Bycina (1991:197) noted that, "interactive theory of reading acknowledges the role
of previous knowledge and prediction but at the same time reaffirms the importance
of the actual words of the text." This indicates that the interactive process of
reading comprehension is a negotiation between the reader's background knowledge
and the textual clues taken up from the printed page through decoding graphic
display. Accentuating this view of reading process Schaller et.al (1984) cited in
Swaffar, Arnes, and Byrnes (1991:22) argued "meaning is not inherent in the print
but is invited by the author and imputed to the text by the reader." This view of
interactive approach to reading stresses the significant role of background
knowledge and textual stimuli in facilitating reading comprehension. Thus it has
important implication for classroom reading lesson presentation. This view of
interactive process of reading goes with the fact that Cook (1994) expressed and
16
which claims that interpretation of discourse is provided by the notion of 'schemata'.
He suggested that discourse processing to predict and make sense of a text depends
on the shared knowledge of both the reader and the writer.

2.3 SCHEMA THEORY OF READING

According to schema theory, the basis for comprehending and remembering ideas in
stories and other types of texts is a reader's schema (i.e., organized background
knowledge into which the text fits (Cook 2001; and Norton 1997). This means a
reader uses background knowledge of different kinds of texts, knowledge of the
world, and the clues provided by the writer in the text to create meaning. Similarly,
Alderson (1985) cited in Norton (1997:136) elaborated that, in schema theory a
reader comprehends a message when he/she can bring to mind a prior knowledge
that provides a good account of objects and events explained in the text. In the
same vein, Nunan (1989) observes that schema theory of reading is an interactive
process between what the reader already knows about the topic or subject and what
the writer writes. Therefore, reading is not simply decoding of graphic symbols and
applying grammatical knowledge to the text. Concerning this Gauntt (1990) cited in
Norton (1997:137) expressed that prior background experience of both text
structures and content facilitates comprehension of a given text. Moreover, Girma
(1994:15) argued that foreign language readers might fail to comprehend a text
unless they fit it into their prior knowledge of content and formal schemata.
17
Likewise Bernhardt (1984:325) claims that learner's "inside the head factors
determine the interpretation of the discourse". To put it in another way the reader's
prior experience with a topic improves the comprehension and interpretation of a
given text. This means, as Mera (1999:10) observed that readers reconstruct the
textual information, based on the text and on their prior knowledge they have about
the text.

Hence, schema theory of reading emphasizes the importance of activating and
building of relevant background knowledge, building expectation and context,
arousing interest, setting purposes for rapid and accurate recognition of linguistic
unit in the text for effective and efficient comprehension of a text (Norton 1997; and
Eskey 1988).

According to the interactive view of reading lesson presentation that is favored in
the communicative approach to language teaching suggested the exploitation of
reading passages in three-phase approach (Carrell 1988; Williams 1984; Mera 1999
and Dubin and Bycina 1991).

In light of this idea the current ELT coursebook for grade nine suggested reading
lesson presentation in three views in the classroom. Therefore, it seems important
to review the three phases of reading lesson presentation procedure in the
classroom that help learners develop efficient reading skills.
18

2.4 CLASSROOM PROCEDURES IN TEACHING READING

In late 1970s and early 1980s the communicative approach to language teaching
and learning brought to light useful classroom procedures to be employed in reading
lesson presentation so as to help learners develop reading skills. According to
Williams (1984:38) communicative approach to language teaching suggests three
phases of classroom reading lesson treatments. These are; "pre-reading, while
reading and post reading activities". He also further states that classroom reading
activities are designed to teach students the reading comprehension process not just
to test their ability to come up with the right product of reading.

2.4.1 PRE-READING PHASE

Pre-reading activities refer to tasks to be carried out before reading a text to create
a conducive situation for the successful comprehension of the text. Hence, many
reading experts stressed the importance of pre-reading activities in teaching reading
skills. For instance, Aebersold and Field (1997:65) argued that skipping the basic
pre-reading activities could create comprehension failure to a reader. In the same
manner Williams (1983) quoted in Hailemichael (1993:12) has found that,
Pre-reading assistance is particularly useful in reading
classroom because it helps to establish a proper mental
set for the reading and discussion of the passage and
also the relevant background information supplied by the
teacher as introduction and/or pre-reading discussion
19
that involves the students themselves and give the
necessary motivation for reading the passage.
Similarly, Barr and Johnson (1997) suggested that interactive approach to teaching
reading takes the pre-reading phase of reading lesson presentation as a springboard
since it makes the readers "feel relaxed and prepared to comprehend the main
issues raised in the text". Therefore, many writers on interactive approaches to
teaching reading agree that there are some main activities to be carried out before
reading. These are: activating prior knowledge, purpose setting for a reading text
and previewing the text to build expectations about the passage to be read
(Aebersold and Field, 1997; Readence et al. 1989; and Barr and Johnson 1997).

2.4.1.1 ACTIVATING STUDENTS' PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Barr and Johnson (1997:10) defined prior knowledge as "individuals present
understanding and organization of a topic, idea, concept, event, object or person".
Therefore, activating and mobilizing a reader's existing knowledge before reading
facilitates comprehension of a passage to be read. This idea elaborates that reading
is not a decoding of graphic display. However, it is an "active process in which there
is a constant dialogue between the passage and the students' previous knowledge"
(Beatie etal. 1984:204).

Again, Bernhardt (1984) shared the similar view that prior knowledge provides
students with a framework to comprehend incoming data through accommodation
20
and assimilation on the basis of the existing background knowledge. Likewise
Anderson (1984) cited in Barr and Johnson (1997:111) suggested that prior
knowledge enables the reader not only to comprehend but also to organize new
information and remember it more effectively. As a result prior knowledge activation
using appropriate instructional strategies is important for effective comprehension in
the reading lesson presentation. Regarding this view, Aebersold and Field (1997)
claimed that reading comprehension in both L2 and FL research discloses ways that
the readers can get benefit from having an introduction to the text before they read
it. First of all an introduction helps the learners to recall any information that they
might know about the topic (i.e. content schemata) either from their experience or
other reading. This enables the learners to formulate hypothesis about the text
content and help them relate their previous experience with the author's to pay
attention to the text. Second, these tasks in turn, arouse the students' interest so
that they will read the passage with interest and enthusiasm. Thus, according to
Barr and Johnson (1997) these pre-reading stage activities activate the concept
developed in the text, provide motivation and build a bridge from the students' mind
to the writer's view in the text so as to make reading easier. Accordingly, there are
various activities that students can be engaged in to recall information on the topic
of a text. Some of them include: pre reading discussion questions, word association,
content mapping, a brief introduction given by the teacher etc. (Aebersold and Field
1997; Dubin and Bycina 1991; and Nuttall 1997).

21
In the pre-reading phase, apart from mobilizing the content schema, students also
need to be aware of the structural or formal pattern of the text they are going to
read. Because formal schemata of a text indicates that knowledge of how
information can be organized and helps reader to comprehend and anticipate
different types of text organization (i.e. rhetorical structures of the text type).
Therefore, these are useful activities for second and foreign language learners in
academic situations (Aebersold and Field 1997).

2.4.1.2 ESTABLISHING A PURPOSE FOR READING

Many reading experts underline that readers need to have clear purposes for reading
before they begin reading because reading without having a clear purpose can lead
the students to frustration. For instance, White (1989:89) in view of communicative
approach to reading argued that, "the students should first of all be given a reason
for reading." In addition, regarding the significance of purpose setting for reading
activities, Barr and Johnson (1997:114) contend that, "a purpose provides direction
and focus for understanding and thinking about the text". In a similar way Marshall
(1989:64) voiced the goal of purpose setting is to "direct students' attention to the
most important information." Moreover, Swanborn and de Glopper (2002:97)
referring to Klauer (1984) suggested that reading objectives directed the readers
attentional processes to those parts of information in a text that are relevant to
accomplish the reading purpose. Therefore, students often need specific direction in
determining what is important in the midst of graphic representations. However,
22
according to Aebersold and Field (1997:66) concerning purpose setting for reading,
the teacher should take into account the learners' language and proficiency level to
determine the appropriate tasks for them that they can carry out by reading the
text. This means, in other words, there should be the match between the text and
the reader in terms of language difficulty and concept complexity when they set
purposes for reading text. Hence, teachers' purpose for having the students to read
a text could vary. For example, they read for specific information where scanning
for particular item makes sense rather than reading for the whole text, or if the
students want to grasp the gist of the text, skimming or sampling the text could be
appropriate tasks etc (Aebersold and Field 1997; Gebhard 2000).

There are varieties of techniques of setting purposes in which the teacher can play
more directive roles. For example, pre-reading questions are the most versatile
means of setting purposes. They are well suited to develop multiple levels of
comprehension, (i.e. literal, inferential and critical skills) Mckenna and Robinson
(1993:159). Another technique for purpose setting is getting the learners themselves
set a purpose for the reading text. In this case the students may set some
questions before they turn to the pages in order to read enthusiastically to find
answers to their own questions. This means of purpose setting technique
encourages the learners to integrate their background knowledge with the textual
information. Therefore, purpose setting according to Barr and Johnson (1997)
23
serves as a natural link between pre-reading and while reading activities and enable
the reader to use specific reading strategies for reading the text.

2.4.1.3 PREVIEWING THE TEXT TO BUILD EXPECTATION

In addition to activating the students' knowledge of the topic and types of the text
structure, Aebersold and Field (1997:73) quoting Dole etal. (1991), state that
"previewing a text before reading is another useful preparation activities, to be
carried out in the classroom to facilitate comprehension." According to Grant (1987)
previewing is an extremely important skill in all reading situations. It is like looking
at a map before starting a journey. Previewing or surveying a text makes the
passage simpler and more predictable to comprehend. This means previewing
various aspects of the text enables the readers to predict and build expectations of
what they are going to read about and give them a framework to help them make
sense of the information (Aebersold and Field 1997). Hence, various scholars such
as Grant (1989: 91-92) and Aebersold and Field (1997) and Dubin and Bycina
(1991:202) suggested how previewing a text before thorough reading operates, for
example, examining several textual features such as the title and the subtitles, the
introduction, the conclusion of a text, illustrations, diagrams and the captions and
reading the first sentences of each paragraph.

24
Actually, since different passages lend themselves to different previewing activities
(Aebersold and Field 1997) forwarded that teachers should help their learners in the
right direction to match the text with the most useful previewing activities to set
their students expectations for reading. In other words, teachers have to expose
their students to various text previewing techniques so as to facilitate smooth
comprehension of the passage they read.

2.4.2 READING PHASE

The main goals of the reading stage are strategy and skill practice as well as helping
the learners to comprehend the content and the rhetorical structure and guessing
meanings of unfamiliar words in a text (Dubin and Bycina 1991, Mera 1999; and
Willam 1984).

Aebersold and Field (1997:95) argue that, "teachers are responsible for helping their
students to use every possible strategy and ability available to them during the
reading act." First and foremost at the reading phase students should read silently
and independently and utilize explicitly various reading strategies. Therefore, silent
reading has to be practiced in class in most cases, even though the teacher might
read aloud sometimes some part of a text for reviewing and discussing the passage
with the whole class. However, students should not read aloud the text in the
classroom (Grellet 1981). Because, as Nuttall (1982:20) observed, When the
students read the text aloud they may not extract necessary messages within
25
appropriate speed as when they read silently. In addition in intensive reading
classrooms the students should approach a text under close and right kind of the
teachers' guidance to comprehend the text (Nuttall 1982, 1996). This guidance can
be offered while the students work on various reading stage tasks (Dubin and Bycina
1991).

As it was suggested in the Teacher's Book for grade nine in a while reading phase of
lesson presentation there are some strategies that the students practice under the
guidance of the teachers. These include guessing meanings of new words and a
text structure discussion.

2.4.2.1 GUESSING MEANINGS

Aebersold and Field (1997:141) stated that, "readers need to know how to employ
strategies to deal with the unknown words they encounter when they read." Hence,
teachers need to have knowledge of the strategies available to help students
develop their skills to deal with unfamiliar words in the classroom to enhance their
students comprehension.

For example, if the unknown word appears several times and the student cannot get
a general idea without it he/she has to be trained how to arrive at the meaning
using word attack-skills such as guessing word meaning from context and using
knowledge of word-building or word-formation process (Dubin 1976; Harmer 1991).
26
2.4.2.1.1 GUESSING MEANING FROM CONTEXT

Guessing meanings from context means deducing the meaning of the unknown
words using the surrounding words in the context it appears. Similarly, Aebersold
and Field (1997:140) state that context gives a framework of meaning within which
readers grasp and remember words. The framework and all the associations that
the readers have of the word within the context help them guess the word. In other
words, it involves words such as synonyms, and antonyms in the same sentence or
paragraphs to deduce the possible meaning of the unfamiliar dictions (Mei-yun
1994).

Guessing vocabulary from other words around i.e. in the context it appears is the
most useful and frequent way to discover the meaning of new words. For instance,
Gebremedhin (1993) described guessing meaning from contexts as one of the
effective reading strategies. This means, the ability to use the words and information
around the unknown word to deduce or infer the general meaning of a word will
serve the learners in reading situations since it enables students to extract meaning
with the help of context clues to increase their vocabulary and reading
comprehension (Ying 2001; Aebersold and Field 1997).



27
2.4.2.1.2 GUESSING MEANING FROM ONE'S PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF
WORD-BUILDING

Another technique of deducing meanings of words in the reading text is through
using one's knowledge of word-building or word formation process. This means of
guessing unfamiliar words in a text focuses on analysis of internal morphological
features like prefixes, suffixes and root words to help learners get the meaning of
many unfamiliar words in the text (Dubale1990; Silberstein 1994; Ying 2001, and
Nuttall 1996). The ability to look at multi-syllabic word and see its meaningful parts
is very beneficial to students when they are trying to understand words they do not
know. Therefore, foreign language learners need to have the knowledge of word
analysis skills as the teaching of the skill of analyzing word parts can be integrated
into the classroom discussions that happen while reading a text. To this end
teachers may ask the students to look at certain words and divide them into their
component parts and work out their meanings and their grammatical category
(Aebersold and Field 1997; Nuttall 1996; and Mei-yun 1994).

It is in line with this assumption that the current ELT course book for grade nine
recommended word meaning guessing using contextual clues and/or word-building
techniques of working word meanings to be practiced in the reading phase and
discussion stage of the reading lesson presentation.


28
2.4.2.2 RECOGNIZING TEXT ORGANIZATION

Text organization serves as a means of enhancing comprehension because it
provides the readers with a powerful strategy for organizing information in a
memorable fashion (Readence etal. 1989). Therefore, making learners aware of text
structures or features helps them to become efficient readers (Harmer 1991).

According to William (1984) a text is not a mere gathering of sentences. It is rather
constructed from interrelated logically organized sentences and paragraphs, which
can convey meaningful message. Hence, teachers have to make their students
aware of some textual features of a text organization so as to help them
comprehend the text effectively.

For example, English teachers should draw their students' attention to the structure
of a text organization such as reference, connectives, vocabulary etc by asking them
look at the relationships between sentences and in any single or one paragraph
(William 1984; and Harmer 1991).

By the same token, Aebersold and Field (1997) and Nuttall (1996) elaborated that
sentences can relate to previous sentences through reformulation, paraphrasing of
the same ideas or by explaining through support or stating reasons, results, cause
29
effect or explanation. Teachers can help their students by drawing their attention
to any signal words that announce the relationships in the text while they read.

Another strategy that should be stressed in the classroom reading is, identifying
transition sentences and recognizing a change or shift of topic when there is no
sentence transitions (Readence et al. 1989; Aebersold and Field 1997).

Thus, introducing text organization in reading lesson can facilitate comprehension of
a given text because text organization helps the reader recognize how individual
sentence or group of sentences relate to each other and contribute to create
meaning in the entire text.

In addition Aebersold and Field (1997), Nuttall (1996) explained that teachers can
use various activities to train the students how information in the passage is
organized. For instance, teachers can give them a partial outline and have the
students fill it in as they read a text from beginning to end. The other means of
doing this is that teachers can ask students to write down the main idea of each
paragraph and the supporting sentences. In other words, this way of training the
learners in the reading lesson helps them understand the passage easily using the
relation between the sentences and the paragraphs and how the writer of the text
has established the relationship.


30
2.4.3 POST READING STAGE.

2.4.3.1 COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

The post reading stage of reading lesson presentation is intended to review the
content of the passage and to consolidate what the students have read and at the
same time to relate the textual information to the learners' knowledge, interest and
opinions. Moreover, this stage of reading lesson treatment focuses on linguistic
elements such as grammar, vocabulary, discourse features and rhetorical
organizations (Nuttall 1996; Mera 1999; William 1984; Dubin and Bycina 1991).

Reviewing the content of the passage and reflecting upon what the students have
read can be carried out through comprehension activities. Aebersold and Field
(1997:117) argue that "one of the most frequent and time honoured activities of
post reading stage is the use of comprehension questions to revise the information
in the text.

Therefore, the comprehension questions exploit the different aspects of the passage
such as the main ideas of the text, some specific details, the difficult parts etc.
Moreover, the comprehension activities focus on language items. For example the
post reading stage of lesson presentation deals with rhetorical organization,
grammatical patterns and vocabulary items. These activities can be carried out once
the main ideas of the text have been reviewed. The exercises on linguistic elements
focus on grammar points, vocabulary in context and discourse features of the
31
passage. In addition, there are other various activities that can be done at this
stage of reading lesson presentation like, listing facts, summarizing main points,
completing tables or diagrams, discussion and writing compositions (Dubin and
Bycina 1991; Aebersold and Field 1997; Willam 1984 and Mera 1999).

Similarly, Mera (1999:18) referring to Barnett (1989) noted that the different
activities of post-reading lesson presentation contribute to the integration of reading
with the other skills. In the same vein, William (1984:39) contended that post
reading activities should contribute in a coherent manner to the writing, speaking
and listening skills. Thus, to facilitate this post-reading lesson presentation, the
teacher should engage the students in individual, pair or group work to give answers
to the comprehension activities since the comprehension questions vary greatly in
what they ask the students. As a result the students benefit much from the
thoughts, experiences and knowledge of their classmates or peers and small group
discussion of the post reading stage.

Dubin and Bycina (19991:204) Nuttall 1996:167) and Aebersold and Field
(1997:121) reported that during comprehension activities or tasks it would be
appropriate to put the students in pairs or small groups to discuss and compare and
verify their responses and opinions to the questions or graphics and then check the
results with the entire class.

32
In other words discussing comprehension questions in pairs or groups enables the
learners to compare and contrast and cross-check their responses to the questions
to come to consensus in their groups and argue for or against the view they have
about some of the ideas in the text and finally forward their answers to the entire
class for discussion which can be mediated through their teacher (Bycina 1991; and
Readence et al. 1989).

Hence teachers should carefully plan comprehension activities of the post reading
stage of lesson presentation to enable learners develop their reading skills in
integration with other language skills.

However, this three-phase approach of reading lesson presentation need not be
carried our strictly and slavishly in teaching reading skills in every reading
comprehension (Dubin and Bycian 1991). In addition, Nuttall (1982:221) states
"different texts need different treatment so that we cannot expect to handle them all
within a single . . . framework." According to Dubin and Bycina (1991:204-205) in
certain conditions it might be appropriate to cut or skip one or more of the stages of
presenting reading lessons. For example, if the students have been working on a
series of passages on the same topic it might not be necessary to spend much time
on pre-reading stage. Likewise, if further reading on the topic is planned, it might
be better to delay work on consolidation until the entire sequence is completed.
Moreover, William (1984) argued that if the micro-skill to be focused on is prediction,
33
there may be more emphasis on pre-reading and while reading activities whereas if
the aim is to focus on the application and transfer of the skills the emphasis may be
on post reading and so on.

2.5 SKIMMING

As suggested in grade nine Teacher's Book (1995:11), "skimming and scanning are
very useful study skills which when mastered would improve the reading efficiency
of the students both in and out of school." Similarly, Grellet (1981) argues that,
"skimming and scanning are specific reading techniques necessary for quick and
efficient reading". Therefore, these reading techniques should be practiced in grade
nine for the improvement of the students' reading efficiency in line with the
procedures suggested for implementation in the reading classrooms.

Many reading experts agree that skimming is going through a text quickly to get a
general idea of the subject matter of a piece of writing (Grellet 1981; Nuttall 1996;
Sonka 1976; and Mei-yun 1994). This means skimming is meant for overall view of
the texts ideas. Therefore, this technique of reading is used to determine whether a
book or an article deserves a meticulous and thorough reading. It can sometimes be
the prerequisite for reading for full comprehension. The distinction between scanning
and skimming is that the former deals with locating specific isolated and scattered
items of information while the latter focuses on getting the gist or overall ideas of
the whole text (Mei-yun 1994:184). Thus, the best way to train the students in
34
skimming skill is to help them know where to find the main ideas of different
paragraphs and be able to synthesize them into organic whole by way of
generalization. This way of training works well because, usually the central idea of a
well-organized paragraph is in most cases found in either the first or the last
sentence of the paragraph(s) (Mei-yun 1994:184). In other words, the general idea
of a text is often expressed in the beginning paragraph(s) and/or concluding ones.
In a similar way, Aebersold and Field (1997) contended that informational texts like
academic essay, college textbooks, etc explain their main ideas in the introduction
part to give clues to the readers to the main thesis in the main parts of the
argument while the conclusion restates some or all of those main points in other
words.

Therefore, teachers have to draw their students' attention to skimming introductory
and concluding paragraph(s) of a text to pick up clues about the main point the
writer is making in the text before reading in detail. Hence the optimum procedures
for teaching skimming (Mei-yun 1994:85) suggested are that learners have to read
the first and last paragraph(s) in full, and the first and last sentence of the
paragraphs in between and pick up key content words as well as dates, figures and
names while quickly moving their eyes down the printed page.

2.6 SCANNING
35
Scanning is looking quickly through a text for a specific piece of information, which
involves quick search for key words in the text (Grellet 1981; Nuttall 1996).
Likewise, Mei-yun (1994:185) claims that, "scanning is a useful skill to locate specific
items of information such as date, a key word, a figure or a name". Hence, this
strategy helps readers focus on the search only of information they want passing
quickly over all the irrelevant materials. With regard to this view of skipping over
unwanted information, White (1981:89) elaborated that "learning to reject the
irrelevant is as important in scanning as dealing effectively with sources of
information which are relevant to the reader's purpose". Therefore, the key to
scanning is to decide exactly what kind of specific information the reader is looking
for and where to find it. In other words, a useful way to teach this skill is to have
students search for some specific information such as a definition, name of a person,
or place, and asking them to start at the same time and see who is the first to find
it. Then ask the student who locates the information first to explain how he/she has
done it (Aebersold and Field 1997; and Mei-yun 1994).







36
CHAPTER THREE
3. METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES OF THE STUDY
3.1 SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY

The target population of the study was a sample of twenty-five grade nine English
language teachers selected from five randomly selected secondary schools in Addis
Ababa using availability sampling. According to the information obtained from
Education Bureau of Region 14, twenty secondary schools are currently offering
grade nine and ten academic subjects in line with the new educational and training
policy. Therefore, out of the total twenty government secondary schools in the
capital, five were randomly selected by casting lots. The schools included in this
study were:
1. Medhanealem Senior Secondary School
2. Ayer Tena Senior Secondary School
3. Dilachin Senior Secondary School
4. Kolfe Comprehensive Secondary School
5. Dilber Senior Secondary School

The rationale for using the simple random sampling technique for this study is that
there is no obvious disparity regarding the students' placement, teachers' allocation,
coursebook distribution, and English language period allotment among the
government schools in Addis Ababa. What is more, various researchers contend that
random sampling reduces sampling bias.
37

Besides five English teachers (one teacher from each of the five sample) schools
were randomly selected and their actual reading lesson presentations were observed
four times each. This is because I believe it would be more likely to find the
teachers' behavior observing five teachers four times rather than observing twenty
teachers actual reading lesson presentations only one time each. Moreover,
seventy-five grade nine students, that is three students from each class of the
twenty-five teachers, at the five schools were randomly selected as well.

3.2. Instruments of data collection

Two kinds of instruments were used to collect data for this study. These are
questionnaire and observation. These two instruments were preferred to others
because they have been proven by researchers such as Cohen (1987) and Seliger
and Shohamy (1989) they argued that questionnaire is self administered and can be
given to a large group of subjects at the same time. Moreover, questionnaires have
the advantage of simplifying data processing while observation, as Seliger and
Shohamy (1989) and Lewy (1979) acknowledged, allows for close investigation of
classroom practices while it is going on at the spot.



38
3.2.1 Questionnaires

Two types of questionnaire, each consisting of thirty-one and twenty-seven items,
were set in English and Amharic for the teachers and the students respectively. The
questionnaire for teachers had two sections. Section one dealt with the
respondents' background information about the new Teacher's Book. It had 4
questions aimed at eliciting information on whether they use the procedures
suggested for them to teach the reading section of the new coursebook for grade
nine and find it useful to present reading lessons in the classrooms. Section two of
the questionnaire, which consists of twenty-seven items, was intended to elicit
information from the respondents about their actual classroom reading lesson
practices. Similarly, the students' questionnaire, which was produced in Amharic, has
one section comprised of twenty-seven items.

3.2.2. Observation

An observation checklist with twenty-four items was used during the reading lesson
presentation. The checklist was designed to examine English language teachers'
reading lesson presentation practices in relation to the introduction of the current
ELT coursebook for grade nine. The checklist contained a list of possible roles and
behavioral patterns, which the researcher felt could be observed in a reading lesson
presentation. The items in the checklist include roles and activities that the
researcher had observed during the pilot study as well as the practices that the
39
syllabus and the new coursebook Teacher's Guide suggested for teaching the
reading section of the current coursebook for grade nine.

The observation checklist had five measures of frequency: always (4), often (3),
sometimes (2), rarely (1), and never (0). Each teacher was observed four times for
each role and/or activity. In each single observation a teacher was assigned under
the dichotomous division of yes/no. If a teacher exhibits a role or an activity in each
of the four observation of reading lesson presentation, he/she earns (4) "yes" and
was assigned in the category of always (4). But if a teacher fails to manifest a role
or an activity in one of the observations, he/she earns (3) "yes" and (1) "no" was
assigned in the category of often (3). Similar procedures were used for the other
categories to incorporate the information obtained from observation to that of the
questionnaires (for details see Appendix b).

3.3 PROCEDURES OF THE STUDY

First the questionnaires were prepared and piloted on eight grade nine English
language teachers and ten students of the same grade in Addis Ababa. The response
obtained from this study were analyzed and interpreted. The result of this study
suggested the need for modification of certain items in order to avoid
inconsistencies, correct ambiguous items and eliminate questions that do not yield
appropriate information for the study. Accordingly, two items were corrected and
40
one item was eliminated from the students' questionnaire and other four questions
were added to the teachers' questionnaire. Then based on this modification, the final
version of the questionnaires and the observation checklist were designed to gather
data for the main study.

In designing the final version of these questionnaires more care was taken to avoid
meta languages such as technical terms, and possible efforts were made to use as
straightforward language as possible to facilitate easy comprehension for the
subjects of the study.

Finally, these revised questionnaires were administered to twenty-five teachers, and
five English language teachers' reading lesson presentation was observed four times
using the observation checklist. In addition, to cross-check the teachers responses,
a questionnaire in Amharic was administered to seventy five grade nine students
sampled from twenty-five sections.

Before administering the questionnaires, beside the cover letter which states the
objectives of both the teachers' and the students' questionnaires, all of the subjects
were approached by the researcher at their respective schools and brief elaboration
about the aims of the questionnaires was given to them. The respondents' were also
given ample time to read each item at their convenience and fill in their genuine
responses appropriately.
41
Finally, the data obtained through the questionnaires and the classroom
observations were organized and the findings were analyzed and discussed.





















42
CHAPTER FOUR
4. PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF THE DATA

This part of the study deals with the analysis and discussion of data obtained from
the teachers and the students through questionnaires and classroom observations.

4.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Questions 1-4 in the teachers' questionnaire were devised in order to investigate
whether the subjects use the new Teachers Book for teaching the reading section of
the new coursebook (i.e. English for Ethiopia: Grade 9 Students Book).

These questions were intended to draw information from the teachers if they use
and find it useful in presenting the reading lessons. The table below shows the
results obtained.







43
Table 1: Teachers Responses Regarding the Use and Usefulness of the Teachers
Book in Teaching Reading Lessons.
Responses in
N0

Questionnaire item (stem) No %
1 Do you use the Teacher's Book for teaching the
students the new course book?
A. Yes
B. No
Total


25
0
25


100%
0
100%
2 If your answer to question No 1 is "yes" how useful
have you found the book to present reading lessons?
A. Very useful
B. Moderately useful
C. Useful
D. Hardly useful
Total


9
10
6
0
25


36%
40%
24%
0
100%
3 Do you follow the procedures suggested in the
Teachers Book for presenting reading lessons?
A. Yes
B. No
Total


22
3
25


88%
12%
100%
4 If your answer to question No 3 is "yes" how often do
you use?
A. Always
B. Sometimes
C. Rarely
Total


5
8
9
22


27.7%
36.3%
40.9%
100%


44
As shown in table 1 above, all of the teachers claimed that they use the Teacher's
Book for teaching the reading lessons in the new course book for grade nine. As to
the usefulness of it 10(40 %) of them reported that it is moderately useful while
9(36%) said it is very useful. The remaining 6(24 %) of them pointed out that they
find the material useful to implement the reading section of the new ELT
coursebook.

In addition, the teachers' responses to item 3 showed that a large proportion of the
subjects, i.e.22 (88%) follow the procedures suggested in the Teacher's Book for
presenting the lessons. However, the remaining 3(12%) reported that they do not
use these procedures.

Moreover, the teachers' responses to item 4, which is an extension of item3,
indicated that 5(27.7%) of the teachers always use it while 8(36.3%) of them use it
sometimes. The remaining, 9(40.9%) of the teachers follow the procedures only
rarely. This means of the teachers reported that they use the procedures for
teaching the reading lessons added together 13(64%) of them use it always and
sometimes while the rest 9(40.9%) of them declared that they use it rarely for
teaching reading. This means as I have observed in the actual lesson presentation
teachers rarely follow the prescribed procedures in the new Teachers Book contrary
to their claims in the questionnaire.

45
However, as can be seen from Table 1, a sizeable proportion of teachers seem
convinced about the usefulness of the Teacher's Book and claimed that they follow
the procedures suggested in it while teaching the reading lessons.

Hence, the above information could serve as a springboard for the further analysis to
be made at a later stage. Following the main findings of the study are discussed.

4.2 PRE-READING PHASE OF LESSON PRESENTATION
One of the purposes of this study is to investigate English teachers pre-reading
lesson presentation practices in relation to the introduction of the new coursebook.
The following table (Table 2) deals with this aspect of the study. There are six items
in Table 2. In addition, the table displays the teachers and the students responses
to all the items in juxtaposition.

Item 1 was intended to see if English teachers would introduce the passage to their
students to provide them with brief background information about the topic to
arouse their students reading interest.

As indicated in Table 2, 6(24%) and 10(40%) of the teachers respectively stated
that they always and sometimes carry out this task before their students read the
46
text. However, 5(20%) of the teachers reported they rarely introduce the passage in
advance and only 4(16%)said they never do it.

The students were asked the same question to find out whether their English
language teachers would introduce the passage to them before reading. As can be
seen from the table 2 below

































47
Table 2: Teachers And Students Responses Concerning Pre-Reading Lesson Presentation

Responses
Always Sometimes Rarely Never
No

Questionnaire item (stem)

Respondents No % No % No % No %

total
T 6 24% 10 40% 5 20% 4 16% 25 1 Introducing the passage in brief to the
students before reading. S 20 26.6% 6 8% 29 38.6% 20 26.6% 75
T 9 36% 8 32% 4 16% 4 16% 25 2 Engaging the students in pair/group
discussion on pre-reading questions. S 12 16% 15 20% 25 33.3% 23 30.6% 75
T 12 48% 3 12% 8 32% 2 8% 25 3 Setting purposes for each reading
assignment and training the students to
vary their reading speed accordingly.
S 10 13.3% 23 30.6% 20 26.6% 22 29.3% 75
T 14 56% 2 8% 6 24% 3 12% 25 4 Drawing the students attention to the
texts title, subtitles, or other visual
support in or around the text to enable
the students predict the content of the
passage in advance.
S 14 18.6% 20 26.6% 24 32% 17 22.6% 75
T 10 40% 6 24% 5 20% 4 16% 25 5 Making the students read the passage
quickly for the main idea of a text S 16 21.3% 10 13.3% 23 30.6% 26 34.6% 75
T 9 36% 5 20% 7 28% 4 16% 25 6 Making the students read the passage
quickly to locate specific information in
a text.
S 13 17.3% 16 21.3% 25 33.3% 21 28% 75

Note: T Stands for Teachers
S Stands for Students

48
20(26.6%) of the students said their teachers always introduce the passage to them
while 6(8%) reported that their teachers sometimes introduce the text to them
before the lesson. However, 29(38.6%) disclosed that their teachers rarely introduce
the passage and 20(26.6%) pointed out that their teachers do not introduce
anything about a text.

The classroom observation; however, revealed that in 3(15%) and 4(20%) of the
observed lessons, the teachers introduce the passage often and sometimes before
reading respectively. In 2(10%) of the observed lessons they rarely introduce it.
However, in 11(55%) of the actual lesson presentation they never do so at all (see
Appendix c, Table 5: Observed frequency of English teachers reading lesson
presentation).

Though majority of the teachers claimed that they always and sometimes introduce
the passage to their students, the students' responses and classroom observation
seem to refute that there is no appropriate introduction given by the teachers about
the passage. As I have seen during the observation teachers write the title of the
passage on the blackboard. Then they ask the students to take out their books and
read the text loudly following their teachers' model. And work out the comprehension
questions that follow the text most of the time contrary to the prescribed procedures
in the Teachers Book.

49
Item 2 asked the teachers if they engage their students in pair/ group discussion on
pre-reading questions. The responses to this item revealed that 9(36%) and 8(32%)
of them respectively reported that they always and sometimes engage their students
in such discussion. Furthermore, 4(16%) of the teachers replied that they rarely
engage their students in pair /group discussion while another 4(16%) reported that
they never engage the students in such activities.

In responses to the same question 12(16%) of the students indicated that their
teachers always engage them in pair/group discussion while 15(20%) said it is only
sometimes that their teachers engage them in this kind of activity. 25(33.3%) of
them however, pointed out that their teachers rarely do this activity. The rest
23(30.6%) of the students reported that their teachers do not ask them to discuss in
pair/ group.

The classroom observation indicated that in 6(30%) of the classes observed the
teachers sometimes engage their students in pair/group discussion on pre-reading
questions. In 2(10%) of the actual reading lesson presentation they rarely created
pair/ group discussions. But in 12(60%) of the cases, there was not anything like
pair/group discussion.

As can be seen from the table, there appears to be a contradiction between the
teachers' and the students' responses. While majority of the teachers said they
50
engage the students in pair/group work, a great number of students claimed
otherwise. But the classroom observation revealed that there were few practices by
the teachers in reading lesson presentation. Hence, it appears that the reading
lesson presentation does not encourage learners to discuss pre-reading questions as
suggested in the new coursebook.

Teachers appear reluctant to create pair/group discussion on pre-reading questions.
This might be issued from teachers' fear of unfavorable teaching conditions around
the classrooms such as immovable chairs and desks that likely to hamper effective
pair and group work within the limited 40 minutes period allocated for teaching
English at secondary schools. But it needs further investigation to conclude that
these are the real reasons behind the teachers' avoidance of pair/group discussion
on pre-reading activities in the actual reading lesson classes.

In item3, the teachers were asked if they set purposes for each reading assignment
and train their students to vary their reading speed accordingly. Responses to this
item disclosed that 12(48%) of the respondents always set purposes for each
reading assignment and train the students in reading with different speed while
3(12%) of the teachers reported that they do it sometimes. 8(32%) indicated that
they rarely do this and 2(8%) revealed that they do not do it at all.

51
On the other hand, 10(13.3%) of the students agreed that their teachers always set
a purpose for reading each passage and train them to vary their reading speed
whereas 23(30.6%) said their teachers sometimes do it. Again 20(26.6%) of them
indicated that their teachers rarely do such a thing. The rest 22(29.3%) however,
reported that their teachers neither give them a purpose for reading nor train them
to vary their speed according to purpose.

The classroom observation confirmed that only in 3(15%) and 6(30%) of the actual
reading lesson presentation teachers were observed often and sometimes
respectively while they provide their students with purposes to vary their reading
styles accordingly. However, in the rest, added together in 11(55%) of the reading
classes the students were either rarely or never given a purpose for reading and
asked to vary their reading speed.

Though the teachers claimed that they provide a purpose for each reading
assignment, the data from the students and observation of actual classroom reading
lesson presentation revealed the contrary. A reading class that does not set purposes
does not equip the learners with the skill of different reading styles based on the
goal of the reading. According to White (1981) reading is mainly for certain
purposes. Thus, the reading lesson presentation in class should be purposeful.
However, as the students reported, in the majority of the lesson observed teachers
52
do not give their students the purpose for reading and train them to vary their
reading styles as per the purpose.

Item 4 was intended to elicit information as to whether teachers draw their students
attention to the passages title, subtitles, or other visual supports in or around the
text to enable their students predict the content of the text. The data in Table 2
indicated that 14(56%)and 2(8%) of the teachers always and sometimes
respectively draw their students attention to such textual features to help them
predict the contents of the passage. In addition, 6(24%) of the teachers reported
that they rarely ask their students to focus on the title, subtitles or other visual
supports in or around the passage while the rest 3(12%) said they do not draw their
students attention to the above-mentioned features.

When it comes to the students, 14(18.6%) of them indicated that their teachers
always ask them to focus on the title, subtitles, and other visual support in or around
the text while 20(26.6%) reported that their teachers sometimes make them focus
on such features. Of the rest, 24(32%) pointed out that their teachers rarely draw
their attention to the textual features while 17(22.6%) disclosed that they never ask
them to use such textual features.

On top of the information obtained from the teachers and the students the classroom
observation also revealed that in 4(20%) of the observed lessons the teachers were
53
seen sometimes drawing their students attention to the text's title, subtitles and
other clues. Furthermore, in 3(15%) of the cases they rarely engage the students in
previewing and in 13(65%) of the lessons they never engage their students in such
activity.

As indicated in the table the great number of teachers revealed that they always and
sometimes respectively draw their students attention to the passages title, subtitles,
and other visual clues. However, a sizeable proportion of the students reported that
their teachers do not use such linguistic and non-linguistic features of a text to
develop their prediction skills before reading. Nevertheless in the actual classroom
observation few teachers were seen trying to get their students exploit the said
clues.

However, the prediction skill, which is very important in reading lesson practices,
seems missing in the actual classroom in grade nine. Mei-yun (1994:185) stated
efficient reading depends to a large extent on making correct predictions with
minimal sampling. Hence, prediction is a very useful skill that teachers should
develop focusing their students' attention on title, subtitles and knowledge of the
topic and other visual supports such as diagrams, tables, etc in or around the text.

Item 5 aimed at gathering data on whether the teachers train their students in
skimming strategy. As the data indicated 10(40%) of them always engage their
54
students in skimming while 6(24%) said they sometimes engage them in this
activity. Of the remaining, 5(20%) reported that they rarely make them do so and
the rest 4(16%) do not engage their students in such kind of reading practice.
As the students' responses in Table 2, 16(21.3) reported that their teachers always
make them skim for gist of the passage while 10(13.3%) said they do it sometimes.
23(30.6%) indicated that they rarely ask them to do such activity and 26(34.6%)
pointed out that their teachers never ask them to skim the text at all.

The classroom observation for skimming indicated that in 8(49%) teachers were
seen sometimes engaging their students in this kind of reading practice while in
1(5%) he/she rarely does so. However, in 11 (55%) of the observed lessons
teachers were not seen making their students skim the passage for the main ideas of
a text.

This means as can be seen from the Table 2, majority of the teachers claimed that
they engage their learners in skimming a passage before they read through the text.
However, the large proportion of students indicated that their teachers rarely or
never engage them in this kind of reading activity. Hence based on the students'
responses and classroom observation it seems plausible to conclude that they rarely
or never engage their students in this kind of reading practice at all.

55
Item 6 was intended to elicit information as to whether the teachers train the
students in scanning the text to locate specific information in the passage. The
teachers' responses to this question indicated that 9(36%) of them always engage
their students in scanning the text while 5(20%) said they sometimes ask them to
locate specific information in the passage. Out of the remaining, 7(28%) reported
that they rarely make them scan and the rest 4(16%) do not ask them to scan the
passage.

When it comes to the students' responses on the other hand, 13(17.3%) said their
teachers always engage them in scanning while 16(21.3%) of them reported that
they do it sometimes. 25(33.3%) of them disclosed that their teachers rarely assign
them to do such task. The rest 21(28%) replied their teachers never assign them to
scan the text before reading through the passage.

Similarly, the classroom observation revealed that in 8(40%) of the observed
lessons, teachers were seen sometimes engaging the students in scanning the
passage. Nevertheless in 12(60%) of the rest lessons they were not seen making
their students scan the passage to locate specific information at all.

This means as can be seen from the table concerning skimming and scanning the
majority of the students confirmed that their teachers rarely or never engage them
in skimming and scanning strategies contrary to the teachers claim. Similarly, the
56
classroom observation asserted that majority of the teachers does not assign their
students to experience these reading strategies. However, the new Teacher's Book
(1995:11) suggested that, " grade nine students would be taught the skills of
skimming and scanning". Therefore, the book recommends the teachers to provide
the students normally with an opportunity to practice one or both of these reading
techniques before reading through the passage. Based on these data it is possible to
conclude that teachers are not training their students in these skills properly as the
textbook suggests.

In general concerning the pre-reading lesson presentation as can be inferred from
Table 2, it is possible to conclude that there seems to be a mismatch between what
is suggested in the Teachers Book and what teachers actually do in the classrooms.

4.3 WHILE-READING LESSON PRESENTATION

The while-reading phase is an important part of reading lesson presentation stage.
The teachers are responsible for helping their students use every possible strategy to
develop efficient reading skills at this stage. Moreover, it is a stage where teachers
close and right kind of guidance enables the learners to comprehend the content and
the rhetorical structure of a text (Nuttall1982). Therefore, in the questionnaires, the
subjects were asked whether the while-reading lesson presentation is in accordance
57
with the procedures suggested in the new Teachers Book. The data gathered from
the subjects are presented as follows:

Item 7 was intended to find out information from teachers whether they engage
their students in reading the passage silently and then ask them do comprehension
questions. The responses in Table 3 indicated that, 11(44%) of the teachers engage
them in silent reading and 6(24%) of them sometimes engage them in silent
reading. 5(20%) said they rarely engage them in such activity whereas the
remaining 3(12%) never engage them in this kind of reading practice at all. This
means teachers mostly engage their students in loud reading in their actual reading
lesson presentation.












58
Table 3: Teachers and Students Responses Regarding While-Reading Lesson Presentation
Responses
Always Sometimes Rarely Never No Questionnaires item (stems)

Respondents
No % No % No % No %
Total
T 11 44% 6 24% 5 20% 3 12% 25 7 Engaging the students in reading the passage silently
and independently and then asking them questions S 12 16% 17 22.6% 22 29.3% 24 32% 75
T 16 64% 2 8% 3 12% 4 16% 25 8 Reading the text first loudly to the students and letting
them read it turn by turn. S 36 48% 20 26.6% 15 20% 4 5.3% 75
T 12 48% 7 28% 3 12% 3 12% 25 9 Reading the text orally and explaining the ideas of the
text to the students and asking them to do the
comprehension questions.
S 34 45.3% 15 20% 11 14.6% 15 20% 75
T 10 40% 6 24% 5 20% 4 16% 25 10 Assigning the students to read the passage at their
homes and work the comprehension questions on their
exercises books.
S 34 45.3% 13 17.3% 14 18.6% 14 18.6% 75
T 12 48% 4 16% 6 24% 3 12% 25 11 Making the students guess the meanings of new words
in the text from contextual clues in the passage. S 33 44% 18 24% 13 17.3% 11 14.6% 75
T 12 48% 6 24% 4 16% 3 12% 25 12 Making the students guess the meanings of unfamiliar
words in the passage using their prior knowledge of
word-building or word-formation process.
S 22 29.3% 21 28% 17 22.6% 15 20% 75
T 9 36% 6 24% 7 28% 3 12% 25 13 Drawing the students attention to the relationship
between different parts of the passage. S 19 25.3% 18 24% 24 32% 14 18.6% 75
T 11 44% 4 16% 5 20% 5 20% 25 14 Engaging students to work through the passage
paragraph by paragraph to enable them comprehend
the contents of a text.
S 15 20% 12 16% 26 34.6% 22 29.3% 75
T 12 48% 6 24% 3 12% 4 16% 25 15 Drawing the students attention to some vocabulary
items such as words in bold face and other
grammatical items that can cause comprehension
difficulties.
S 23 30.6% 22 29.3% 16 21.3% 14 18.6% 75
T 10 40% 7 28% 7 28% 1 4% 25 16 Encouraging the students to identify a logical
organization of a text focusing on references and
cohesive devices.
S 10 13.3% 18 24% 25 33.3% 22 29.3% 75



59
On the other hand, 12(16%) of the students reported that their teachers always
engage them in silent reading and ask them to do the comprehension questions
while 17(22.6%) said they sometimes do so. In addition, 22(29.3%) disclosed that
their teachers rarely engage them in such activity. However, the remaining 24(32%)
reported that they never ask them to read silently.

By the same token, only in 4(20%) of the observed lessons teachers sometimes
engage their students in silent reading. However, in 3(15%) and 13(65%) of the
teachers rarely and never assign their students to such reading activity.

But the new Teachers Book (1995:13) suggested students should read the passage
silently by themselves and the practice whereby the teacher and /or the students
read the passage aloud is not recommended." In addition various reading scholars
contend that the aim of teaching reading is to enable learners to read and
comprehend the text silently. With regard to this point Nuttall (1982:20) argued,
when the students read the text aloud they may not extract necessary message
within the appropriate speed as when they read silently. It is for this fact that
Grellet (1981:10) suggested that practicing reading in the classroom .is a silent
activity.

Thus, silent reading should be encouraged in most casesthe students themselves
should not read aloud. As can be seen from the data though fairly large proportion
60
of teachers claimed that they practice silent reading, the students' responses seem
to indicate that teachers widely practice loud reading. As a result the silent reading
which is more appropriate to develop the students reading skills was rarely and
never used in the reading lesson presentation observed. In other words most of the
observed classes were dominated by loud reading.

The teachers responses to item 8 indicated that, 16(64%) reported that they always
read the text first loudly and let the students read it turn by turn. 2(8%) pointed out
that they sometimes do it while 3(12%) revealed they rarely carry out this practice.
The remaining, 4(16%) indicated they do not do it at all.

Concerning the students responses to this question, 36(48%) and 20(26.6%)
indicated that their teachers always and sometimes read the text and engage them
in such reading practice respectively. The rest 15(20) and 4(5.3%) said that their
teachers rarely and never do so.

When it comes to the classroom observation, in 4(20%) of the lessons teachers
always read the text loudly in advance and let their students do it in the same way.
In 9(45%) and in 2(10%) of the lessons teachers often and sometimes read the text
first loudly and allow the students to read in the same manner respectively. In
5(25%) teachers rarely carry out such practice in their reading classes.

61
Based on these data it appears logical to conclude that teachers read the text first
loudly and then allow them to read in the same manner in reading classes; however,
the new Teachers Book discourages such practices. Yet teachers seem to insist on
presenting reading lessons in the traditional approach rather than the communicative
approach of teaching reading, which is stated for the teachers in the new ELT
coursebook.

Item 9 was intended to see whether the teachers read the text orally and explain the
ideas of the text to their students and ask them to do the comprehension questions.
The data in Table 3 indicated that 12(48%) of the teachers always read and explain
the ideas of the text to their students and 7(28%) of them said they sometimes do
it. Of the remaining, 3(12%) reported that they rarely do so while another 3(12%)
indicated they do not do such practices in their reading lesson presentation classes.

The students' responses as can be seen from table 3, indicated that 34(45%) and
15(20%) of their teachers always and sometimes respectively perform this activity.
Again, 11(14.6%) indicated that their teachers rarely do it while 15(20%) said their
teachers do not do such activity in their reading classes.

The classroom observation also confirmed that in 4(20%) of the lessons teachers
always read and explain the content of the passage while in 9(45%) of the actual
reading lessons observed they often carry out this kind of practice. In 2(10%) of the
62
lessons teachers sometimes do it. In the rest only 6(30%) of the lessons: however,
they never read and explain the ideas of the text to their students at all.

This means as can be seen from the table, the teachers claimed that they read and
explain the ideas of the text to their students most of the time. Similarly, the
students' responses and the classroom observation also confirmed that most of the
time teachers read and explain the content of the text to their students with the
exception of 6(30%) of the actual observed lessons. This means teaching reading
comprehension appears replaced by content teaching. Hence, when viewed in this
context the explanation and elaboration which most of the teachers give on the
reading passage in the observed lessons focuses on re-telling what the passage
presents. This way of presenting reading lesson may contribute a little to the
development of the students' reading skills suggested in the new coursebook.

As a result, some reading experts contended that devoting more time for explanation
of the content rather than focusing on the process of reading can create a problem
to the development of reading skills. Hence, explaining a passage thoroughly to the
students is a wrong kind of help that teachers wrongly do. With regard to this point
Nuttall (1982:21) argued, When the teachers give explanation, the students
probably develop listening skills."

63
Therefore, the teaching of reading becomes aimless. Similarly, Widdowson (1978)
expressed such experience as a teaching of content rather than teaching of reading.
Reading lesson is thus, not providing the students with something but a means to
develop the students ability to extract the message the text contains using their
background experiences (Nuttall 1982).

Thus, based on these data it is possible to conclude that the large proportion of
teachers present reading lessons in the traditional approach. They give their students
a wrong and in appropriate kind of guidance. For example, as the classroom practice
indicated most of the reading classes were dominated by loud reading and teachers
explanation of the contents at the expense of teaching reading processes that
promote the students' reading ability. Therefore, the procedures suggested in the
new Teachers Book seem to be hardly materialized in the actual reading classrooms.

Item 10 in table 3, asked the teachers as to whether they assign their students to
read the passage at their homes and work the comprehension questions on their
exercise books. Accordingly, the teachers' responses revealed that 10 (40%) and
6(24%) disclosed that they always and sometimes respectively assign them to do so.
Out of the remaining, 5(20%) assign them to do it rarely and the rest 4(16%) never
assign them to do such activity.

64
With regard to item 10, 34 (45.3%) of the students reported that their teachers
always assign them in this activity while 13 (17.3%) said their teachers sometimes
do so. The rest 28 (37.3%) added together disclosed that their teachers rarely and
never carry out this activity.

In addition, the data from the classroom observation indicated that in 9 (45%) of the
reading lessons observed teachers always assign their students in this kind of activity
while in 4 (20%) of the lessons they often assign them in this kind of activity.
However, in 7 (35%) of the lessons they do not do it at all.

From these data it seems possible to conclude that the large proportion of the
teachers assign their students to read the text at their homes and do the
comprehension questions on their exercise books. This practice might save time for
discussion, however it is probable to be sure that the students get the right training
and proper guidance and help in order to develop their reading skills which they
need for academic purposes as implied in the new Teacher's Book.

Item 11 was intended to draw information as to whether the teachers make their
students guess new words in the text using contextual clues. Teachers' responses to
this question indicated that 12(48%) of the teachers always make their students
guess the meanings of the new words using contextual clues. 4(16%) of them said
they sometimes make their students deduce the meanings of unfamiliar words from
65
contextual clues while 6(24%) reported they make them rarely use it these clues.
The remaining, 3(12%) said that they do not make them guess new words in the
passage using the above stated clues.

Concerning the students' responses to this question 33(44%) revealed that their
teachers always make them infer the meanings of new words in the text using
contextual clues while 18(24%) disclosed their teachers sometimes do it. 13(17.3%)
of the students reported that their teachers rarely engage them in using contextual
clues to guess meanings whereas 11(14.6%) agreed that their teachers do not teach
them word guessing techniques using contextual clues.

Regarding word guessing, using contextual clues, the classroom observation
indicated that, in 3(15%) and 8(40%) of the lessons teachers often and sometimes
make their students deduce the meanings of new words from contextual clues. In
the remaining, 9(45%) of the observed lessons teachers do not make them guess
new words using these clues.

Item 12 was intended to seek information from teachers whether their teachers
make them guess unfamiliar words in the passage using word-building processes. As
can be seen from the table 3, 12(48%) of the teachers responded that they always
make their students work out the meanings of new words using their prior
knowledge of word-formation process. 6(24%) of them said they sometimes make
66
them use word-building process to deduce meanings while 4(16%) of them reported
they rarely make their students use it. The remaining, 3(12%) asserted they do not
make them guess new words using word-formation process at all.

Similarly, 22(29.3%) of the students indicated that their teachers always make them
guess the meanings of new vocabulary in the passage using prior knowledge of
word-building process. 21(28%) of them disclosed that their teachers make them
use sometimes this means of word-guessing while 17(22.6%) of the students said
that their teachers rarely engage them in guessing meanings using this clue.
However, 15(20%) of them agreed that they do not teach them word-guessing
techniques, namely word-formation process at all.

The classroom observation revealed that in 8(40%) of the lessons observed teachers
sometimes make their students infer the meaning of new words using prior
knowledge of word-building processes while in 1(5%) he/she rarely does it. In the
rest 11(55%) they do ask their students the meanings or definitions of the words
rather than training them in word-guessing strategies. Therefore, this might be due
to lack of orientation and awareness in while reading word-attack skills that the
readers should use in reading comprehension section of the new textbook.

As it is depicted in the teachers' and students' responses, a large number of teachers
appear that they engage their students in word-guessing strategies such as
67
contextual clues and word-building processes. However, in a sizeable proportion of
the reading lessons observed teachers rarely and never train their students in word-
guessing techniques using the above-mentioned clues.

Therefore, there is a disparity between what the teachers' and the students'
responded and the data obtained from classroom observation. Further research need
to be made in this area to arrive at some conclusions. However, as the classroom
observation indicated teachers seem that they do not ask their students to focus on
word-guessing strategies in their reading lesson presentation. Moreover, they usually
skip and probably treat them in the vocabulary section.

Another question raised in table 3 was intended to see if teachers draw their
students' attention to the relationship between different parts of the text. The
teachers' responses to this question indicated that 9 (36%) and 6 (24%) of them
always and sometimes draw their students' attention to the relationship between the
different parts of a passage respectively. Of the remaining, 7(28%) reported the
rarely do it while the rest 3 (12%) do not do this kind of activity.

Concerning the students' responses 19 (25.3%) and 18 (24%) respectively disclosed
that their teachers always and sometimes draw their attention to the relationship
between the different parts of the text. 24 (32%) reported that their teachers do it
rarely and 14 (18.6%) never help them do this kind of activity at all.
68

As the classroom observation data indicated only in 6(30%) of the observed lessons,
teachers sometimes help their students to see the relationship between the different
parts using the organizational patterns of the text. In 2 (10%) they rarely draw their
students' attention to such features of the text. However, in 12 (60%) of the lessons
they do not do this kind of comprehension work. Moreover, in 9 (45%) and 4 (20%)
of the reading lessons observed teachers often and sometimes respectively help the
student see the relationship between the text using references and connectives. In 2
(10%) of the lessons observed teachers rarely do it using these features. However,
in 5 (30%) of the lessons teachers never help them see the relationship between
parts of the passage using these textual features at all (see Appendix C item 13 a
and b in Table 5 for details).

With regard to this view some researchers argued that drawing the students'
attention to the relationship between the different parts of a text facilitates
comprehension of the passage. For instance, Mei-yun (1994:185) noted that the
logical relationship between different parts of a text helps the learners easily
comprehend a text. The relationship between different parts of a text can often be
signaled by organizational patterns such as cause-effect, definition, sequence of
events and so on. Therefore, drawing the students' attention to these patterns of
relationships between different parts of a text are the "best indicator of ideas" and
hence" most important for reading comprehension." Similarly, the Teacher's Book
69
has recommended the teachers to help learners see the relationship between the
different parts of the passage using organizational patterns, references and
connectives etc.

As the table reads the teachers' and the students' responses showed that teachers
help students to see the relationship between different parts of the passage.
However, only some teachers were observed drawing their students' attention to the
relationships using organizational patterns. The others mostly use references and
connectives for this purpose. Therefore, the teachers and the students' responses
might indicate that of using references and cohesive devices (see Appendix C, table
5:item 13a and b).

Item 14 was intended to check whether teachers engage their students to work
through the passage paragraph by paragraph to enable them grasp the content of a
text. As the Table 3 showed 11 (44%) and 4 (16%)of the teachers disclosed that
they always and sometimes engage their students respectively in this kind of activity.
Of the remaining, 5 (20%) said they rarely engage them in such work while another
5 (20%) reported they do not engage them in this kind of comprehension work.

From the students' responses; however, we see that 15 (20%) agreed that their
teachers always engage them in this activity while 12 (16%) said it happens
70
sometimes. 24 (34.6%) reported that their teachers rarely do it so while 22 (29.3%)
however, disclosed that their teachers never engage them in such activity.

The classroom observation showed that in 3 (15%) of the lessons observed teachers
often help their students work through the passage paragraph by paragraph while in
2(10%) they sometimes help them to do so. In 8 (40%) of the lessons they rarely
engage them in working through the paragraphs. Nevertheless in 7 (35%) of the
lessons they never ask them to work through the text at all.

In addition the observation result on this question indicated that in 6 (30%) of the
lessons, teachers sometimes help their students to work through the text and
identify the main and supporting details of the paragraphs while in 2 (10%) of the
lessons they rarely engage them in this kind of activity. In the rest 12 (60%) they do
not assign them to carry out this kind of comprehension activity. (Please see
Appendix C, table 5: item 14a and b).

However, Mei-yun (1994:185) argued that working through the passage from
paragraph to paragraph enables the reader to comprehend the points of the text. For
example he further explained "general statements usually contain main ideas while
specific details usually give explanations, elaborations and examples that support the
general statements."

71
Hence as can be seen from the data a sizeable proportion of teachers claimed that
they engage their students in such activity; however, the majority of the students,
and the classroom observation result indicated the contrary. Therefore, this
important reading comprehension activity appears somewhat neglected. As a result it
seems possible to conclude from the students' and the classroom observation that
teachers are not putting into practice the procedures suggested for teaching the
reading sections of the new coursebook for grade nine.

Item 15 was aimed at gathering data as to whether teachers draw their students'
focus on some vocabulary such as the one in bold face and other grammatical items
that can cause comprehension difficulties. As depicted in Table 3, 12 (48%) said that
they always focus their students' attention on these items while 6 (24%) reported
they sometimes do it. The rest 3 (12%) disclosed that they do it and 4 (16%)
indicated they do not do it at all.

In response to the same question, 23 (30.6%) of the students indicated that their
teachers always draw their attention to some dictions and grammatical items that
hamper comprehension. 22 (29.3%) of them said their teachers sometimes do it
while 16 (21.3%) of the students agreed that their teacher rarely draw them to focus
on these items. The remaining, 14 (18.6%) reported their teachers never focus them
on these possible causes of comprehension difficulties at all.

72
The classroom observation indicated that in 9(45%) of the lessons observed,
teachers often draw their students' attention to these items while in 4 (20%) they
sometimes do it so. In the rest 7 (35%) of the lessons they focus their students on
such items of the text (see Appendix C Table 5 item 14 c).

These data revealed that teachers always and sometime focus their students'
attention on some vocabulary and grammatical items that they feel would create
comprehension problems as suggested in the new Teachers Book. This could be
probably due to the emphasis the teachers give to the vocabulary and the grammar
for text comprehension from their language teaching and learning experiences.

The last item in Table 3 deals with whether teachers encourage the students to
identify a logical organization of a text focusing on references and cohesive devices.
Responses to this question showed that 10 (40%) of the teachers always do it while
7 (28%) of them engage the students in this kind of activity. Another 7 (28%) said
they rarely ask them to do it so. Whereas the rest 1 (4%) revealed he/she never
encourages them to experience such activity.

When it comes to the students' responses, 10 (13.3%) and 18 (24%) of them
reported that their teachers always and sometimes encourage them to identify the
logical organization of a text. The remaining, added together accounts for 47
73
(62.6%) indicated that their teachers rarely and never respectively encourage them
to do so using references and connectives.

Regarding the same question, the classroom observation indicated that in 5 (25%) of
the lessons observed teachers do not ask their students to identify the logical
organization of the passage helping them to focus on reference and conjunctions
while in 2 (10%) they rarely do it. In the rest 3 (15%) and 4 (20%) of the lessons
they focus their students on such activity often and sometimes respectively (see
Appendix C Table 5 item 13b).

The data from the classroom observation and the students seem to disprove the
teachers claim because they were found either rarely or never at all when they
encourage their students to identify the logical organization of the text focusing on
references and cohesive devices.

To conclude about the while reading stage of lesson presentation vis--vis the new
Teacher's Book it appears that there is a disparity between what the new book
suggested and what the teachers really do in the actual classroom reading lesson
presentation. For example the reading class was dominated by loud reading,
teachers' explanation, and students were assigned to read the passage at their
homes and do the comprehension exercises. Moreover, silent reading was not
properly practiced in the classroom. However, it is the recommended way of helping
74
learners develop their reading skills hence, it is possible to conclude from these data
that English teachers are not presenting the while reading phase of lesson
presentation within the framework of communicative language teaching suggested
for presenting reading in the new course book for grade nine.

4.4 POST READING PHASE OF LESSON PRESENTATION

The post-reading phase is the last phase of reading lesson presentation. It is the
stage at which review of the content of the passage and linguistic elements and
other language skills are widely treated (Mera 1999). In the questionnaires the
subjects were asked whether the post-reading lesson presentation is going on in the
actual classroom as prescribed in the new Teachers Book. The following table
depicts the data obtained from the teachers and the students:

Item 17 was designed to see if teachers engage their students in individual writing to
respond to the comprehension questions. As shown in Table 4, 9 (36%) and 6
(24%) of the teachers reported they always and sometimes respectively engage
them in this activity. 4 (16%) said they rarely do so while another 4 (16%) disclosed
they never engage them in such activity at all.

According to the students' responses, 32 (42.6%) and 19 (25.3%) reported that their
teachers always and sometimes engage them in writing responses to Comprehension
questions.

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Table 4: Teachers' and Students' responses concerning post reading
Responses
Always Sometimes Rarely Never No Questionnaires item (stems)

Respondents
No % No % No % No %

Total
T 9 36% 6 24% 6 24% 4 16% 25 17 Engaging the students in individual writing task to
respond to comprehension questions. S 32 42.6% 19 25.3% 15 20% 9 12% 75
T 10 40% 4 16% 7 28% 4 16% 25 18 Engaging the students in pair/group discussion to
compare and contrast their answers on the
comprehension questions for whole class discussion.
S 11 14.6% 14 18.6% 26 34.6% 24 32% 75
T 9 36% 5 20% 8 32% 3 12% 25 19 Moving from group to group and ensuring the students
discussions are going on in English and in an orderly way. S 8 10.6% 9 12% 26 34.6% 32 42.6% 75
T 11 44% 5 20% 6 24% 3 12% 25 20 Selecting a group leader or letting the students select
their group leader to moderate discussion on the
comprehension questions.
S 14 18.6% 16 21.3% 20 26.6% 25 33.3% 75
T 9 36% 6 24% 8 32% 2 8% 25 21 Guiding and directing the students to work in their
groups and come to consensus on best answers to the
comprehension questions.
S 15 20% 15 20% 25 33.3% 20 26.6% 75
T 10 40% 4 16% 5 20% 6 24% 25 22 Giving general instruction about the nature of the activity
i.e. the aim of the tasks to develop the spoken and
written English skills.
S 15 20% 12 16% 30 40% 18 24% 75
T 10 40% 5 20% 7 28% 3 12% 25 23 Providing advice only when necessary and encouraging
the students to decide on the answers of the
comprehension questions in their groups.
S 10 13.3% 22 29.3% 23 30.6% 20 26.6% 75
T 9 36% 4 16% 8 32% 4 16% 25 24 Asking the students to express their group decision on
the comprehension questions as they finish their group
activity for whole class discussion turn by turn.
S 13 17.3% 18 24% 27 36% 17 22.6% 75
T 9 36% 8 32% 5 20% 3 12% 25 25 Engaging the students in some follow-up activities such
as completing tables, diagrams, and writing
compositions.
S 21 28% 22 293% 20 26.6% 12 16% 75
T 8 32% 6 24% 4 16% 7 28% 25 26 Allowing the students to express their views on the ideas
reflected in the passage either supporting or opposing.
S 18 24% 11 14.6% 26 34.6% 20 26.6% 75
T 12 48% 4 16% 7 28% 2 8% 25 27 Assigning the students to summarize and comment on
the points of the text. S 13 17.3% 16 21.3% 21 28% 25 33.3% 75
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15 (20%) said that their teachers rarely do it whereas 9 (21%) indicated their
teachers do not engage them in this kind of activity.

As can be seen from Table 4, the teachers' and the students' responses revealed that
English teachers always and sometimes engage their students in writing individually
to respond to the questions, which is a common practice in the classroom.

Item 18 was intended to find out whether teachers engage their students in
pair/group discussion to compare and contrast their answers to the comprehension
questions. The responses to this question revealed that 10 (40%) of them always
engage the students in pair/group discussion while 4 (16%) sometimes engage their
students in such discussions. Of the remaining, 7 (28%) disclosed they rarely engage
them in this kind of activity. The rest 4 (16%) of them; however, replied they do not
engage their students in pair/group discussion.

In response to the same item, 11 (14.6%) said their teachers always engage them in
pair/group work on comprehension questions and 14 (18.6%) teachers sometimes
do this. Again, 26 (34.6%) disclosed they rarely engage them in this kind of
discussion while 24 (32%) said they never engage them in this kind of activity at all.

The classroom observation revealed that, in 6 (30%) and in 2 (10%) of the classes
observed the teachers sometimes and rarely respectively engages their students in
77
pair/group discussion on post reading comprehension work. However, in 12 (60%) of
the cases there was not any thing like pair/group discussion at all.

As it is possible to read from the table, English teachers rarely or never engage their
students in pair/group discussion to compare and contrast their answers on the post
reading comprehension activities. Therefore, it appears logical to conclude that the
post reading lesson presentation was still dominated by traditional practices of
reporting the correct answers based on the information in the text only without
discussing in groups.

In my opinion this could be due to the unfavorable physical conditions around the
classrooms such as immovable chairs and desks and limited time and large class size
that might consume a good half of the allocated period for English lessons if they try
the new way to practice in their reading lesson presentation. Nevertheless it requires
making further research to come up with such conclusions.

Item 19 was intended to draw information as to whether teachers move from group
to group and check the student's discussion is in English and orderly. As the data in
Table 4, displayed 9 (36%) and 5 (20%) said they always and sometimes
respectively move around and check their students group work. Out of the
remaining, 8 (32%) reported they rarely play this role in the lesson presentation
while 3 (12%) disclosed they do not do this at all.
78

When the students reactions are considered, 8 (10.6%) of them reported that their
teachers always move from group to group and ensure that their students' group
discussion is in English and orderly. 9 (12%) said they do it so sometimes while 26
(34%) replied they rarely play this role. However, the rest 32 (42.6%) confirmed
that they do not play such role in reading classes.

The classroom observation also depicted that in 6 (30%) and in 2 (10%) of the
lessons observed, teachers often and sometimes played this role respectively. In a
large proportion of the lessons, 12(60%) teachers were not seen doing this activity
at all.

As can be seen from the data there is a difference between the teachers' and the
students' responses; however, the classroom observation indicated that teachers
rarely and never play this role in the reading classes. This implies that for one thing
group discussion is rarely observed in the reading lessons and not properly checked
and monitored so as to develop their students' communicative ability.

As I have tried to suggest for item 18, teachers appear reluctant to organize
pair/group work probably because of the unfavorable teaching conditions like fixed
desks and chairs and forty-minutes period for teaching English in relation to the
portion the school administration expected of them to cover at the end of a
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semester. As a result pair/group work appears rarely to exist in high school classes.
Thus, other roles and activities related to pair/group work teachers are expected to
carry out also influenced and appear rarely or never practiced in reading lesson
presentation.

Item 20 deals with teachers' role of selecting a group leader or letting the students
select their leader who moderates their discussion on comprehension questions. As it
is indicated in Table 4, 11 (44%) and 5 (20%) of the teachers replied that they
always and sometimes respectively nominate or let the students choose their group
leader. Again, 6 (24%) said they rarely do it whereas 3 (12%) reported that they
never play this role at all.

With regard to item 20, 14 (18.6%) students disclosed that their teachers always
nominate or allow them to select their group leader. 16 (21.3%) and 20 (26.6%)
revealed respectively that they sometimes and rarely do it. But the rest 25 (33.3%)
disclosed their teachers neither nominate nor let them choose their group leader.

The classroom observation depicted that only in 2 (10%) and in 4 (20%) of the
observed lessons teachers sometimes and rarely play this role. In the rest 14 (70%)
they neither chose nor allowed their students to do so.

80
As can be seen form the table, there seems to be a disparity between the teachers'
and the students' responses. While the majority of the teachers said they either
nominate or let them choose their leaders, the large number of students claimed the
opposite. However, the classroom observation result coincides with that of the
students. Therefore, it appears logical to conclude that a sizeable proportion of the
teachers rarely and not at all nominate or allow the student to select their group
leader to facilitate discussions.

This could perhaps be due to the non or rarely existing of the group discussion in the
reading lessons as the actual reading lessons observed in item 18 revealed above.

According to the teachers' responses to question 21, 9 (36%) and 6 (24%) of them
always and sometimes respectively play a role of guiding and directing their students
to work in groups to arrive at one best answer. 8 (32%) rarely do it while the rest 2
(8%) do not at all carry out this kind of role.

When it comes to the students, 15 (20%) of them indicated that their teachers
always direct and guide them while another 15 (20%) said they sometimes play this
kind of role. When seen together this accounts for 30 (40%) of the students while 25
(33%) of the students said they rarely do it. The remaining, 20 (26.6%) reported
that their teachers never give them such guidance and direction.

81
The data obtained from classroom observation showed that in 3 (15%) and in 6
(30%) teachers often and sometimes give the students' proper guidance on their
comprehension activity. However, in the remaining 1 (5%) and the rest 10 (50%)
they rarely and never respectively give them such guidance.

As the data from Table 4 depicted there appears to be a contradiction between the
students and the teachers responses to this item. The classroom observation result;
however, goes with that of the students data. This implies that teachers rarely or
never ask their students to discuss on post reading activities. Therefore, majority of
teachers rarely play the role of guiding and directing students to work effectively in
their group discussion.

Item 22 was intended to see if teachers give general instructions about the nature of
the activity and the aim of the comprehension exercises. Responses to this item
disclosed that 10 (40%) of the teachers said they always give the students the
nature and aim of the activity. 4 (16%) of the teachers reported they do it only
sometimes. Out of the remaining 5 (20%) indicated they rarely do it so while 6
(24%) said they do not do it at all.

Based on the students' responses, 15 (20%) and 12 (16%) revealed that their
teachers always and sometimes respectively give them the nature and aim of the
comprehension activities. 30 (40%) said that their teachers do it rarely while the rest
82
18 (24%) disclosed they do not give them the nature and the objectives of the
comprehension work.
Furthermore, the actual classroom observation showed that in 6 (30%) and in 4
(20%) of the lessons, teachers always and sometimes inform the students the nature
and the aim of the comprehension activities. In 10 (50%) they never tell them the
nature and the aim of the comprehension exercises.

As it is possible to read from the table, fairly large number of teachers claimed they
inform their students the general nature and aim of the comprehension tasks.
Nevertheless majority of the students and classroom observation indicated that they
rarely and never inform their students the nature and the purpose of the
comprehension activities at all in the reading classes. But as seen in this and other
items, teachers probably responded positively for irrational reasons to feel safe and
secured.

Item 23 asked the teachers whether they provide advice but encourage the students
to decide on the answers in their groups. As shown in Table 4, 10 (40%) said they
always provide the students' with advice when necessary but let them decide on the
answers in their groups. 5 (20%) reported they sometimes provide them advice but
allow them to decide the answers in their groups while 7 (28%) agreed they rarely
do it so. The rest 3 (12%) never do such activity at all.

83
In responses to the same question, 10 (13.3%) of the students indicated that their
teachers always give them advice but encourage them to decide on the answers in
their respective groups while 22 (29.3%) said they only do it sometimes and 23
(30.6%) reported they rarely do it so. The rest 20 (26.6%) replied that they do not
do it at all.

The classroom observation depicted that in 4 (20%) and in 3 (15%) of the lessons
teachers sometimes and rarely give the learners advice when necessary but
encourage them to decide on the answers of the comprehension questions in their
groups. However, in the rest majority of the lessons they do not give them advice
and encourage them to discuss in their group in order to come up with various
answers interpreting the questions.

The data from the teachers contradict that of the students. However, a sizeable
proportion of the observation result indicated that teachers do not encourage
students to give decision on the comprehension questions in their respective groups
nor provide them advice when necessary. Hence, it appears plausible to conclude
that teachers rarely carry out this kind of activity in their reading lesson presentation.

They simply ask the students to report their answers on individual basis and tell
them the correct answers suggested in the Teacher's Book and never encourage
84
them to discuss on the questions and come up with their own answer which they
agreed upon and reasoned out on in their groups.

Item 24 was intended to elicit information as to whether teachers ask their students
to express their groups decisions as they finish their group activity for whole class
discussion turn by turn. The teachers' responses in Table 4 indicated that 9(36%)
and 4(16%) of the teachers always and sometimes respectively do it. Of the
remaining, 8(32%) of them rarely do it while the rest 4(16%) said they never do it at
all.

According to the students' responses 13(17.3%) and 18(24%) indicated that their
teachers always and sometimes respectively ask them to express their group's
decision to the whole class. Again, 27(36%)reported that their teachers rarely ask
them to do so. However, 17(22.6%) pointed out that their teachers do not ask them
to air their decision to the whole class discussion at all.

As the reading lesson observation also indicated in 4(20%) and in 3(15%) of the
observed lessons teachers sometimes and rarely ask their students to report back to
the whole class their respective group decisions turn by turn. However, in 13(65%)
of the lessons teachers do not ask them to do so.

85
The table shows that almost half of the teachers and the majority of the students
reported that teachers rarely and never respectively engage them in group
discussion and ask them to report back to the whole class discussion. Similarly, the
reading lessons observed revealed that in the majority of the cases they don't
engage them in such activity.

Teachers were often seen assigning their students to do comprehension questions
on individual basis on their exercise book and then report it to the class the right
answers.

Item 25 was aimed at gathering data on whether the teachers engage their students
in some follow-up activities. Accordingly, 9(36%) and 8(32%) of the teachers
reported that they always and sometimes engage them in such activities
respectively. When seen together this accounts for 17(68%) while the remaining
5(20%) engage them rarely and 3(12%) never do such post reading follow-up
activities.

When it comes to the students' responses, 21(28%) and 22(29.3 %) of the students
said that their teachers always and sometimes engage them respectively in these
activities. When put together this accounts for 43(57.3%) of the students while the
rest 20(26.6%) and 12(16%) reported that their teachers rarely and not at all assign
them to work on follow up activities after reading.
86

The classroom observation indicated that in 2(10%) they often engage them in
follow-up tasks. In 8(40%) they sometimes do so while in 4(20%) they rarely do it.
In the rest 6(30%) they do not do it at all.

As can be seen from the table, it appears logical to conclude that teachers always
and sometimes engage their students in follow-up post reading activities. This is
because the teachers and the students claimed that they carry out these tasks.
Similarly, the classroom observation confirmed that they perform these activities in
their post-reading lesson presentation.

Item 26 was designed to draw information from teachers if they let the students to
express their views on the ideas reflected in the passage either supporting or
opposing it. The teachers' responses as can be seen from Table 4, 8(32%) and
6(24%) reported that they always and sometimes let them express their views on
the ideas of the text. Of the remaining 4(16%) said they rarely do it while 7(28%)
disclosed they do not do it at all.

In addition, the students' responses to this question revealed that 18(24%) and
11(14.6) reported that their teachers always and sometimes allow them to express
their views on the ideas of the text. Likewise, 26(34.6%) and 20(26.6%) of them
87
respectively indicated that their teachers rarely and never let them do so. When
added together this accounts for 46(65.2%) of the students.

The classroom observation indicated that in 3(15%) and 6(30%) of the observed
lessons teachers often and sometimes respectively let the students express their
views on the passage. In 1(5%) he/she rarely let them do it. However, in 10(50%)
of the lessons they never do it so. Hence, from these data it is possible to infer that
teachers rarely or never allow their students to express their views on the text's idea
from their own experience. Thus, this indicated that teachers still seem to favor the
view that a text is full of meaning where the reader simply absorbs, which is contrary
to the communicative way of teaching reading prescribed in the new course book.

Item 27 which is the last question of table 4, was intended to elicit information from
teachers whether they assign their students to summarize and comment on the main
ideas of the text. Responses to this item showed that 12(48%) of the teachers
always assign their students to summarize and comment on it while 4(16%) do it
sometimes. Out of the remaining, 7(28%) indicated that they rarely do this and
2(8%) do not do it at all.

As can seen from the students' responses, 13(17.3%) and 16(21.3%) of them said
their teachers always and sometimes assign them to condense and comment on the
main points of the text respectively. Of the rest 21(28%) said their teachers rarely
88
assign them in such kind of activity while 25(33.3%) reported that their teachers
never do it at all.

The classroom observation indicated that in 8(40%) of the lessons teachers
sometimes ask the students to condense and comment on the ideas of the text. In
the remaining, 1(5%)and 11(55%) of the lessons teachers rarely and never ask their
students to do so respectively.

As can be seen from the data in Table 4, a sizeable proportion of teachers claimed
that they ask their students always and sometimes to summarize and comment on
the main ideas of the text. However, majority of the students reported that their
teachers rarely and not at all ask them to condense and comment on the main ideas
of the text. Similarly, the classroom observation goes with that of the students.
Hence, it seems plausible to conclude that the students hardly develop the skills of
summarizing a text, which they need across the curriculum for academic purposes.







89
CHAPTER FIVE
5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 CONCLUSIONS

This study was carried out with the aim of investigating the way English language
teachers present reading lessons vis--vis the introduction of the new coursebook,
which was designed with communicative orientation than its predecessors for grade
nine in some selected government schools in Addis Ababa.

Therefore, the central intent of the present study was to find out whether there is a
match/mismatch between the prescribed procedures in the new Teacher's Book and
English language teachers' actual reading lesson presentation practices.

To this effect, questionnaires and observation were used to collect the data for this
study. The questionnaires were administered to both English teachers and students
of grade nine. In addition, classroom observation was conducted to see whether
there is an overlap between what the Teacher's Book suggested and what they really
do in the actual classrooms in presenting reading lessons. Similarly, the
questionnaire was administered to the students to verify whether English language
teachers really put into practice the activities prescribed in the teachers' guide.

90
On the basis of the results obtained from the questionnaires and the classroom
observations the following conclusion could be drawn:

5.1.1 The analysis of responses obtained from these sources suggested that
teachers are presenting reading lessons in the traditional approach.

Especially as far as pre-reading lesson presentation is concerned the students'
responses and classroom observation result indicated that the majority of
teachers rarely introduce the passage to their students or they even do not do
it at all. In addition, they do not engage their students in pair/group
discussion on pre-reading questions. In my view this might be due to fixed
chairs and desks that likely inhibit to organize pairs and group work easily
within 40 minutes. Moreover, the teachers rarely engage their students in
previewing the texts focusing their students' attention on title, subtitles,
and/or other visual clues in or around the passage. Furthermore they rarely
set purposes and train their students in skimming and scanning strategies to
enable their learners become efficient readers in their academic career.

5.1.2 By the same token, concerning the while-reading phase of lesson
presentation, the data from the three sources revealed that it was
dominated by loud reading. Silent reading was sometimes and rarely
practiced in the reading classroom where it should be predominantly
91
expected to be practiced as suggested by the new coursebook and other
reading experts such as Grellet (1981) recommends. In addition, the
teachers read orally and explain the content of the passage to the students.
This shows that the teaching of reading focuses on content teaching rather
than the intended reading skills. Moreover, the students were assigned
frequently to read the passage at their homes and come to class with the
comprehension exercises copied on to their notebooks to save their class
time for comprehension work. Therefore, it was not clear whether the
students really read the text at home or they merely come to class simply
copying the questions. However it is possible to conclude that the while-
reading lesson presentation was not practiced as suggested in the Teacher's
Book in the classrooms in the grade under consideration.

Furthermore concerning word guessing strategies in reading, though the
large proportion of teachers make their students guess the meanings of new
words in the passage using either contextual clues or word building
processes as observed in the classroom they usually see it as a vocabulary
teaching rather than as one part of teaching reading comprehension. As a
result they associate it with the vocabulary section of the textbook and
widely treat them in the vocabulary section. Again the students' and
classroom observation data indicated that teachers rarely draw their
students' attention to the relationship between parts of the passage. For
92
example, the classroom observation data yielded that the teachers were
rarely and never engage their students to work through the passage
paragraph by paragraph to comprehend the ideas of the text. They
sometimes and rarely focus their students' attention on the organizational
patterns of the text and help them see the relationship between the
different parts of the passage so as to enable them grasp the main ideas of
the text.

However, it seems possible to conclude from this study that teachers often
draw their students' attention to some vocabulary items such as words in
bold and other grammatical patterns that may cause comprehension
difficulties. This could perhaps be ascribed to the teachers' view to
grammar and vocabulary teaching which was a core of the traditional
practice that they were accustomed to in language teaching/learning
process. On the contrary, the data indicated that they sometimes and rarely
ask their students to identify the logical organization of a text using
references and cohesive devices.

5.1.3 With regard to the post-reading phase, the data revealed that teachers
mostly engage their students in individual writing to respond to the
comprehension questions. In other words, this revealed that teachers rarely
or never engage their students in pair/group work to discuss the
93
comprehension activities in order to come up with various interpretations of
the questions. Though individual writing to respond to the text is crucial part
of reading lessons, pair/group work, in which students discuss about the
text and text-related tasks are also important and required aspect in reading
lesson presentation (Williams 1986:42). However, this crucial part of reading
lesson treatments seem hardly existing in the actual reading classes
observed.

On the contrary, a sizeable proportion of the teachers and the students and
the classroom observation data yielded that teachers rarely or never engage
their students in pair/group discussion to compare and contrast their
answers on the comprehension questions after reading. Therefore, activities
and roles related to pair/group work seem rarely or non-existent in the
classroom reading lesson treatments. However, the new Teachers Book
explicitly suggested the procedures for the teachers on how to organize
their students in pair/group work to compare and contrast their answers on
comprehension questions at post-reading lesson presentation.

As a result the teachers rarely move from group to group to coordinate their
students' discussion and check whether it is taking place in English and
orderly. Similarly, from the data it is possible to conclude that they rarely
and never encourage the students to work in pair/group and ask them to
94
report back what they have decided on the comprehension questions in their
respective pairs/groups to the whole class discussion turn by turn. In
addition, the data from this study revealed that teachers rarely and never
give their students the general nature and aims of the comprehension
activities at all. This means they merely assign the students to work on the
task without informing them the purpose of the comprehension activities.
Nevertheless, the teachers guide suggests clearly for the teachers to inform
their students the general nature and purpose of each comprehension
activities.

The teachers claimed that they engage the students frequently in follow-
up activities such as completing tables, diagrams, writing compositions etc.
Nevertheless, the data from the students' responses and the classroom
visit revealed that English teachers rarely or never ask their students to
summarize and comment on the main idea of the passage.

Moreover, the data from the students' responses and the classroom
observation results confirmed that they rarely and never engage their
students to express their views and opinions on the ideas reflected in the
text. Therefore, teachers are not properly training their students in
interpreting what they have read from their own viewpoints either
supporting or opposing the ideas treated in the passage.
95

5.2 Generally, English language teachers' reading lesson presentation in
grade nine was dominated by traditional practices such as loud reading,
content explanation, assigning the students to read at their homes and so on
rather than the communicative approach of presenting reading which was
favored in the new syllabus and the new coursebook. As a result, there was
a gap between the pedagogical procedures suggested in the new Teacher's
Book for teaching reading lessons and the teachers' actual classroom reading
lesson presentation practices. Hence, it is possible to conclude from this
study that there is no marked shift of paradigm in English language teachers'
reading lesson presentation in relation to the introduction of the new
coursebook in grade nine in Addis Ababa. That is to say, teachers still insist
on teaching reading in the traditional paradigm. Though teachers responses
in the questionnaire seem to indicate that they have the knowledge of how to
present reading lessons, they did not put into action the change in the course
book in the actual classrooms.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the above conclusions the following recommendations should be
made:
5.2.1 It is unquestionable that to change the classroom practices changing
textbook alone does not effect the changes we aspire for in line with
96
the current innovations made in the language teaching and learning
program. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and other concerned
bodies should organize practice based workshops, seminars and in
service training related with how to present reading lessons in line with
the suggested pedagogical procedures rather than the theoretical and
philosophical teachings of communicative language teaching used to
develop the current ELT coursebook. In addition, the Ministry of
Education should make efforts to furnish the school libraries with
different materials on language teaching methodology such as journals,
books, cassettes etc, to make easy access to the teachers so that they
may read and improve their way of teaching reading skills in the new
coursebook.
5.2.2 Teachers should make their own personal effort to keep abreast with
current theory and practices in language teaching in general and
teaching reading in particular to familiarize themselves with appropriate
methods of presenting reading lessons so that they could put in to
practice the new coursebook effectively in the classrooms.

5.2.3 Above all, further research should be conducted to find out why
teachers are reluctant to put in to practice the prescribed procedures in
the new Teacher's Book for teaching the reading section of the current
coursebook in grade nine in Addis Ababa.
97
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105
APPENDICES
APPENDIX-A
ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
Questionnaire for teachers

Dear Teachers,
I am presently making an investigation of English Language Teachers reading lesson
presentation in grade nine in relation to the introduction of the new ELT course book. The
following questionnaire is therefore designed to gather relevant data for the study from you.
As a result, your responses will have much contribution to the success of the intended study.
So please read each item in the questionnaire carefully and give your genuine
responses. With regard to the information you give me, in the questionnaire I would like to
assure you that all of them would be kept confidential and used only for the research purpose.
You are not required to write your name.
Thank you very much in advance for your cooperation.

Direction One: Please read the following items carefully and put a tick / / in the box
indicating your practices.
1. Do you use the Teachers book for teaching the new ELT course book?
a) Yes b) No
2. If your answer to question No 1 is yes how useful have you found the book to
present reading lessons?
a) Very useful c) Useful
b) Moderately useful e) Hardly useful

3. Do you follow the procedures suggested in the new Teachers Book for presenting
reading lessons?
a) Yes b) No
4. If your answer to question No 3 is yes how often do you use it?
106
a) Always
b) Sometimes
c) Rarely
Direction two: the following statements show reading lesson presentation practices. Please,
indicate the extent to which you carry out these practices in your reading lesson presentation
in grade nine by putting a tick () in one of the boxes against each statement.
Rating scales
No

Practices Always Sometimes Rarely Never
1. I introduce the passage in brief to the
students before reading.

2 I engage the students in pair/group
discussion on pre-reading questions.

3 I set purposes for each reading
assignment and train the students to vary
their speed accordingly.

4 I draw the students attention to the texts
title, subtitles, or other visual support in
or round the text for predicting the
content before they read.

5 I make the students read the passage
quickly for the gist or main idea of the
text.

6 I make the students read the passage
quickly to locate specific information in
the passage

7 I engage the students in reading the
passage silently and independently and
ask them questions that follow.

8 I read the text first loudly and then let the
students read it turn by turn.

107
9 I read the text orally and explain the
ideas of the text to the students and ask
them do the comprehension questions.

10 I assign the students to red the passage at
their homes and do the comprehension
questions on their exercise books.

11 I make the students guess the meanings
of new words in the text from contextual
clues.




12 I make the students guess the meanings
of unfamiliar words in the passage using
their prior knowledge of word building or
word-formation process.

13 I draw the students attention to the
relationship between different parts of the
passage.

14 I engage the students to work though the
passage paragraph by paragraph to enable
them comprehends the content of the
text.

15 I draw the students attention to some
vocabulary items such as words in bold
and other grammatical items that can
cause comprehension difficulties.

16 I encourage the students to identity a
logical organization of the text such as
references cohesive devices etc.

17 I engage the students in individual
writhing task to respond to
comprehension questions.

108
18 I engage the students in pair/group
discussion to compare and contrast their
answers on the comprehension questions
for whole class discussion.

19 I move from group to group and ensure
that the students discussions are going
on in English in an orderly way.

20 I select a group leader or make the
students select their group leaders who
moderate their group discussion on the
comprehension questions.

21 I guide and direct the students to work in
their groups and come to consensus on
one best answer on the comprehension
questions.

22 I give a general instruction bout the
nature and aim of the comprehension
activity (i.e. to develop their spoken and
written English skills)

23 I provide advice only when necessary
and encourage the students to decide on
the answers of the comprehension
questions in their groups.

24 I ask the students to express their group
decisions on the comprehension
questions as they finish their group
activity for a brief whole class discussion
turn by turn.

25 I engage the students in some follow-up
activities such as completing tables,

109
diagrams, and writing compositions etc
26 I let the students express their views and
opinions on the ideas reflected in the
passage either supporting or opposing.

27 I ask the students to summarize and
comment on the main points of the text.



















110
APPENDIX-B

ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
OBSERVATION CHECKLIST

This checklist is intended to investigate grade nine English language teachers reading
Lessons presentation practice in relation to the introduction of the new coursebook.
These practices will be recorded in the category of Yes/ No on the basis of whether
they happened in the classrooms. Each teacher will be observed four times. Finally,
the yes/No category will be changed in to five-measure frequency: always (4), often
(3), some times (2) rarely (1) and never (0). That is if an event happens in four of
the reading lessons observation days it will be always (4), if it happens in three of
the observation days it will be often (3) and so on.




No

Practices

Yes

No
1 The teacher introduces the passage to the students
briefly before they read.

2 The teacher engages the students in pair/group
discussion on pre-reading questions.

3 The teacher sets purposes for each reading
assignment.

4 The teacher draws the student' attention to the text's
title, subtitle and/or other visual supports in the text
for predicting the content of the passage before
reading.

5 The teacher assigns the students to read for the gist
of the passage.

6 The teacher assigns the students to read for specific
information.

7 The teacher engages the students in silent and
independent reading.

111
8 The teacher reads a text first loudly and then let the
students read it turn by turn.

9 The teacher reads the text orally and explains the
ideas of the text to the students.

10 The teacher assigns the students to read the passage
at there homes and do the comprehension exercises.

11 The teacher makes the students guess the meanings
of new words using contextual clues.

12 The teacher makes the students inter the meanings
of unfamiliar words using structural clues.

13 The teacher draws the students attention to the
relationship between different parts of the passage
by
a) Using the organization patterns in the passage

b) Using references and connectives.


The teacher helps the students to grasp the content
of the text by: a) Working through the passage
paragraph by paragraph.
b)Identifying the main and supporting details of
the paragraph.

c) Focusing the students attention on some
vocabulary and grammatical items in the
passage.

14

15 The teacher engages the students in pair/group
discussions to compare and contrast their answers on
comprehension questions after reading the passage.

16 The teacher moves from group to group and checks
the students performances and gives advice when
necessary.


17 The teacher lets the students choose their group
leader or choose them one himself/herself.

18 The teacher gives the students the purpose of the
comprehension activity.

19 The teacher gives proper feedback and guidance on
the students comprehension activities.

20 The teacher engages the students in pair/group
discussion to give various interpretations to the
comprehension question rather than one correct
answer only.

21 The teacher asks the students to report back to the
112
whole class the results of their group discussion.
22 The teacher engages the students in expressing their
opinions on the text

23 The teacher engages the students in some follow up
activities such as completing tables, diagrams, writing
compositions etc.

24 The teacher ask the student to summarize and
comment on the main points of the text























113
APPEDIX-C, Table 5: Observed Frequency of English Teachers Reading Lesson Presentation Practices in the Classrooms
Always Often Sometime Rarely

NEVER



Total
No

Reading Lesson Presentation Practices
No % No % No % No % No % 20
1 The teacher introduces the passage in brief to the students before
they read.

-

-

3

15

4

20

2

10

11

55
20
2 The teacher engages the students in pair/group discussion on pre-
reading questions.

-

-

-

-

6

30

2

10

12

60
20
3 The teacher sets purposes for each reading assignment. - - 3 15 6 30 1 5 10 50 20
4 The teacher engages the students in previewing the text. - - - - 4 20 3 15 13 65 20
5 The teacher assigns the students to read for the gist of the passage. - - - - 8 40 1 5 11 55 20
6 The teacher assigns the students to read for specific information. - - - - 8 40 - - 12 60 20
7 The teacher engages the students in silent and independent reading. - - - - 4 20 3 15 13 65 20
8 The teacher reads the text first loudly and then let the students read it
turn by turn.

4

20

9

45

2

10

-

-

5

25
20
9 The teacher reads the text orally and explains the ideas of the text to
the student.

4

20

6

30

4

20

-

-

6

30
20
10 The teacher assigns the students to read at their homes and do the
comprehension exercises.

-

-

9

45

4

20

-

-

7

35
20
11 The teacher makes the students guess the meaning of new words
from contextual clues.

-

-

3

15

8

40

-

-

9

45
20
12 The teacher makes the students guess the meanings of unfamiliar
using word-building processes.

-

-

-

-

8

40

1

5

11

55
20


-


-


-


-


6


30


2


10


12


60
20
13 The teacher draws the students attention to the relationship between
different parts of the passage by:
a) Using the organizational patterns in a passage.
b) Using references and connectives.
- - 9 45 4 20 2 10 5 20
20


-


-


3


15


2


10


8


40


7


35
20

-

-

-

-

6

30

2

10

12

60
20
14 The teacher helps the students comprehend the content of the text
by:
a) Working though the passage paragraph by paragraph.

b) Identifying the main and supporting details of the paragraph.
c) Focusing the students attention on some vocabulary and
grammatical items in the passage.
- - 9 45 4 20 - - 7 35
20
114
15 The teacher engages the students in pair/ group discussion to
compare and contrast their answers on the comprehension questions
after reading the text.


-


-


-


-


6


30


2


10


12


60


20
16 The teacher moves from group to group and checks the students
performance and give advice when necessary.

-

-

-

-

6

30

2

10

12

60
20
17 The teacher lets the students choose their group leader or choose
them one himself/herself.

-

-

-

-

2

10

4

20

14

70
20
18 The teacher gives the students the purpose of the comprehension
activities.

-

-

-

-

6

30

4

20

10

50
20
19 The teacher gives proper feedback and guidance on the students
comprehension activities.

-

-

3

15

6

30

1

5

10

50
20
20 The teacher engages the students in pair/group discussion to give
various interpretations to the comprehension questions rather than
one correct answer only.


-


-


-


-


4


20


3


15


13


65
20
21 The teacher asks the students of report back to the whole class the
results of their group discussion

-

-

-

-

4

20

3

15

13

65
20
22

The teacher engages the students in expressing their opinions on the
text.

-

-

3

15

6

30

1

5

10

50
20
23 The teacher engages the students in some follow up activities such as
completing tables, diagrams, writing compositions etc.

-

-

2

10

8

40

4

20

6

30
20
24 The teacher asks the students to summarize and comment on the
main points of the text.

-

-

-

-

8

40

1

5

11

55
20







116

Appendix D
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118
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119
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120








121
Declaration
I, the undersigned, declare that this thesis is my original work and that all
Sources of materials used for the thesis have been dully acknowledged.


Name: Melkamu Dumessa
Signature: _________________
Place: Institute of Language Studies, Addis Ababa University
Date of submission: June 2002