An Investigation On Teachers’ Perception About Grammar Teaching And Their Classroom Practices

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the association between teachers perception and instructional practices in grammar teaching at Burusa , Abdi Bori and Metu high schools. The study used mixed research method, and took twenty English language teachers of the above three schools as respondents. Data were gathered by using questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. The quantitative data were analyzed using frequency, percentage and mean, whereas the qualitative data were analyzed using narration, description, and summarization. The findings indicated that almost all English teachers of the three selected schools have a positive attitude towards implicit grammar teaching. However, the class observations have shown that teachers in the three targeted schools practiced rule based or explicit grammar teaching, and grammar is not taught in the way teachers believed. Hence, there was mismatch between teachers’ perceptions of grammar teaching and their classroom practice. The influence of students need, the vast content of the textbook , time needed to cover the material and high school supervisors intention which is only to cover the content of the textbook rather than its communicative accomplishment were stated as the main reasons for this mismatch. The researcher recommended that teachers should apply what they perceived in order to conduct effective grammar teaching. Even though students’ interest is explicit grammar teaching, teachers should make the learner aware of the importance of implicit grammar teaching. Corresponding teachers and supervisors should get training and refresh their knowledge of grammar teaching by short training of grammar teaching methodology.