A Study On Female Students’ Participation In Efl Lesson:Bale Robe Secondary School Grade Nine In focus.

Abstract

This study was about the investigation of grade nine female students’ participation in English classroom in Bale-Robe Secondary School. Both teachers and students of the school were participants of the study; out of the total 530 female students in the school 10% (53) of them were randomly selected while five male students and seven English teachers of the school were selected purposely. Classroom observation, interview, and questionnaire were used as instruments of data collection in this study. The researcher used descriptive method of study to analyze qualitative and quantitative data gathered from the respondents using frequencies and percentage. The findings of the study indicated that female students have no equal participation to that of their male counterpart in English classroom. The female students also lacked the confidence and made less effort to participate in English classroom. Lack of help, encouragement, feedback and chance to participate, lack of reference materials, lack of guidance and counseling, large class size were also among the factors that affected female participation in English classroom. Similarly, lack of parental moral support and unequal family treatment and their lower income also affected female participation. The cultural attitude towards female and work overload on female students at home also had their effect on their time to study and preparation in the English classroom. Interruption by male students and their teacher as well as lower expectation of female students by their teachers and their parents also affected their participation in English classroom. Lack of tutorial class for female student was also mentioned as contributing factors affecting female participation in English classroom. Hence, the researcher recommended possible solutions, such as, encouraging female students by calling their names , giving more chances, managing the classroom effectively, giving guiding and counseling service, improving method of teaching, giving tutorial classes, allowing female students to participate making effort by female students for equal participation, fair treatment, advice, encouragement by their parents, buying reference materials and employing more teachers to reduce large class size and mobilizing local NGOs to help poor families of female students.