Assessing the practice of teaching English language through integrated skills: some selected primary schools in yirgacheffe Woredas

This thesis was concerned to assess the practice of English language teaching through skills integration in Yirgacheffe town at four primary schools that could be selected using comprehensive sampling technique. The study incorporated the objectives that assessed how English language teachers integrated the language skills, the frequency how often the teachers integrated the skills and the perception of the teachers towards language skills integration. For this study, all 26 English language teachers from sample schools were the subject of the study. To collect the necessary data, questionnaire and interview were provided for teachers. In addition, three consecutive classroom observations were done in 8 sections to know how often the classroom teachers implemented skills integration in their English language pedagogy. Then, the data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study indicated that majority of teachers did not implement the skills integration using communicative language teaching methods. The finding further revealed that most of the teachers did not use tasks, topics and contents to teach the language through skill integration. In addition to this, they hardly play the role of teachers in terms of motivating the students, organizing students in groups and giving enough time for students developing independent learning. Likewise, the teachers were interested in teaching the grammar part alone and a single skill without integration. On the other hand, large number of teachers thought that teaching language through integration perceived to be waste of time. Even though few teachers had a positive perception towards skills integration, majority of the teachers had a negative perceptions towards skill integration. Finally, the researcher recommended possible avenues for further works.