Female Learners towards Participation and Perception in EFL Communicative Activities at Gambella Preparatory School

Abstract

The rationale of this study is to examine the extent of Gambella preparatory school EFL female learners‟ participation to and perception towards communicative activities and to give details of major findings. From a total of 316 grade 11 and 12 female learners, 25% which is 79 of them filled their opinion in the questionnaires using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." The age of participants ranged from 15 to 20 and they were drawn from 10 sections of natural and social streams. The study employed a mixed research method which is quantitative and qualitative approaches. To validate the findings, triangulation technique was used to compare the findings obtained from questionnaires with those of the semi-structured interviews were provided to the teachers. Result of study showed female learners‟ perception and participation were positive in communicative activities. From 79 female students, 75% of respondents perceived to communicative activities positively. But 25% of respondents were not either positive or negative since they filled some questionnaires with “undecided”. For the extent of their participation in communicative activities, 90% of them strongly agreed to take a part in activities. However, some activities are not what they need to participate in. Additionally, English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers do not fulfill or address their interest during they teach communicative activities. Students are highly motivated when they participate in communicative language using different types of activities, because if communicative activities focus on realistic and enjoyable task, they enhance their fluency, pronunciation, accuracy, self confidence and in general language competency. Perception of female learners in communicative activities is positive. However there is lack of teachers‟ contribution in assessing learners‟ need. It is important to consider the needs and desires of students when they prepare and design the lesson for communicative activities.