EFL Teachers’ Perception and Practice of Teaching Vocabulary through Communicative Language Teaching: The Case of Grade Eleven Teachers of Gore and Onga High Schools, Ilu Abba Bor Zone of Oromia Region

Abstract

The main target of the study was to investigate EFL teachers’ perception and practice of teaching vocabulary through communicative language teaching at Gore and Onga high schools of Alle District, Ilu Abba Bor Zone of Oromia Region. To carry out the designed study, 130 grade 11 students and five English language teachers were selected to collect data for the research using simple random and comprehensive samplings respectively. The research design was descriptive survey and both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis were applied. SPSS version 26 of application software was used to analyze the results of the questionnaire. To gather the necessary data for the study instrumentslike questionnaire, focus group discussion, and classroom observation were utilized. To analyze the collected data from students’ response through questionnaire, percentage and mean value were employed and the results were expressed using tables, bar charts and pie charts. And the data from focus group discussion and classroom observation were analyzed using word descriptions. The findings of the study revealed that, the majority of the teachers have positive perception about the importance of the CLT principles to teach vocabulary communicatively. However, in relation to the actual vocabulary teaching, they spent much of their time in presenting the meanings and forms of words in isolation. It was also found out that the teachers overused the lecture method in teaching vocabulary rather than teaching unfamiliar words communicatively. In addition, they unduly emphasized the dictionary definitions of words. It is recommended that English language teachers should teach vocabulary communicatively using students ‘real life situations.