PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING GRAMMAR: THE CASE OF THREE GRADE 10 SECONDARY SCHOOLS AT HONKOLO WABE WOREDA IN ARSI ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

The study was designed to examine whether communicative grammar teaching is being implemented in EFL grammar teaching or not. The main objective of the study, therefore, was to find out the practices and challenges of implementing CLT in teaching grammar. Typically, descriptive survey research design was used in the present study. Teachers and students of grade 10 were the target sample of the study. The sample of teachers consisted of 30 English teachers. Whereas the sample of the students consisted of 135 students. In order to accomplish this objective, the researcher gathered data using questionnaire, interview and observation. Questionnaires were distributed to both teachers and students. Next, selected individuals from the teachers groups were interviewed. Thirdly, classroom observation was also held for teachers. The researcher underwent through this procedures based on the degree of importance of data gathering tools. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data. The data gathered by each tool were organized and tabulated quantitatively but summarized qualitatively. The key findings revealed that the current methodological practices of teaching English grammar skills are still traditional teaching methods that stress the dominant role of teachers, limit students’ interactions, focus on discrete skills, and encourage competitive rather than cooperative grammar teaching and learning. Furthermore, the study explored a range of challenges that English teachers and students face when they attempt to implement the CLT in their grammar classroom. These challenges stem from the conceptual constraints, class level constraints, societal-institutional constraints, individual and contextual levels of teachers grammar teaching practice. In general, teachers and students do not practice the communicative grammar approach as frequently as they should due to the insufficient background knowledge they have on CLT. Therefore, it is mandatory to give in service or short term training so that teachers and students use the CLT principles and practicing their roles in grammar will be improved