Abstract:
The general objective of this study was to investigate EFL students’ and teachers perceptions and practices of the writing tasks in grades 11 and 12 in one general secondary and preparatory school context. The study was conducted in Liyew Asres Zewudie General Secondary and Preparatory School in the academic year of 2017/2018. The study employed convergent parallel mixed research design so as to achieve the intended objectives of the study. The data for this study were collected through questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. Questionnaires were mainly prepared and administered to both 120 students and 18 English language teachers who had been selected using systematic random sampling and comprehensive sampling respectively. Twelve students from the sample representatives and six English language teachers were interviewed. Eight preparatory sections which were taught by eight different teachers were selected purposively and observed on the basis of an observation checklist. Then, the data were analyzed quantitatively using frequency, percentage and mean value, and qualitatively in words. The findings of the study disclosed that most of the students had unfavorable perceptions about the writing tasks of the textbooks and their classroom practices of the writing tasks were profoundly poor, which was in contradiction with the tenets of TBW. The study also revealed that the majority of teachers had fairly positive perceptions about the effects and relevance of writing tasks on improving the learners’ writing ability although they were proved to have negative perceptions about the roles students and teachers should play in practicing the writing tasks.. It was concluded that the teachers’ practices of the writing tasks were not in line with the tenets of TBW and hence the roles both teachers and students should play in each phase of the writing tasks were not properly played. Finally, the researcher forwarded recommendations to teacher educators, education bureaus, school authorities, teachers, students and other concerned bodies to make their contributions so as to effectively overcome the identified gaps.
