ASSESSING GRADE 10 STUDENTS EXPERIENCES OF LEARNING READING SKILLS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN GORO SECONDARY SCHOOL IN ADAMA TOWN OROMIA REGION

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess Grade 10 Students experiences of learning reading skills challenges and opportunities in Goro Secondary School in Adama Town. To attain this objective, descriptive survey study research design in which mixed methods- quantitative and qualitative were employed to collect and analyze the data, to interpret the findings and draw inferences. The data were collected from 90 grade 10 Students who were chosen randomly form the total population of 900 students. Secondly, five grade 10 English teachers who taught EFL in this grade level were included by using random sampling and three administration bodies were taken by purposive sampling techniques for the sake of additional data to the study. The researcher used questionnaires as the major data collection form student‟s, interview from teacher‟s, from administration bodies and from classroom observation check list as supportive data collecting tools. The data obtained through these tools were analyzed and discussed by integrating quantitative and qualitative method in order to compensate the limitation in either method. The data obtained through questionnaire were analyzed and integrated qualitatively employing descriptive structural techniques such as frequency counting percentage; whereas data obtained from interview and classroom observation checklist were analyzed, descripted and interpreted qualitatively. The finding of the study revealed that students have very limited reading experiences and did not use some important opportunities, therefore, they have deep rooted problems or challenges in reading skills; among those majority of students have the problem of extracting meaning from the reading comprehension and unable to infer gist from the text. The data collected from classroom observation showed that students encouraged to read aloud reading rather than silent reading, it influences on understand of the text. Students also have lack of cognitive strategies and meta cognitive awareness of reading comprehension. Then students could not resolve their reading difficulties or problem they encountered during reading lesson, therefore; reading activities become challenging for them.