EFL Teachers’ perceptions and Implementation of active learning Strategies for Teaching Speaking Skills and the Challenges They Face: The Case of Grade 11 students at Mole Mendera Secondary School

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine strategies teachers employ in teaching speaking skill, their perceptions of the strategies and the challenges they face and the relationship among perception and their use of the strategies. Hence, descriptive research design and both qualitative and quantitative survey method were used. The study was conducted at Mole Mandara secondary school of grade 11 students. From total students of 498 participants were randomly selected and seven EFL teachers from the selected school and the others EFL teachers from other schools were purposely selected and participated in the study. Three data collection instruments: Questionnaires, Interview, and class room observation were employed. The findings of the study showed that as teachers perceived most of the classes in the school at the secondary level are overcrowded and unmanageable and the students get very little time for speaking practice. Although, teachers perceived that, teaching speaking skill is too much boring due to both internal and external factors that related with lack of teaching materials available in the schools, poor student‟s attitudes towards learning speaking skill due to fear and frustration of making mistakes, the poorly organized of the student‟s text book in which most of the portions are very vulnerable for grammar and vocabulary than leaflet on speaking skills. In addition to these, the use of mother tongue in English language lessons by teachers and students devalue the use of English for communication, sacrifice valuable opportunities for English language use and learners see it as language used for oral drills and dialogues which are not important. Therefore, it was concluded that they use the adopted lecture method, explanation, question and answer which are mainly teacher-centered teaching methods. This was resulted that students‟ participation was low as most learners were passive.