Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was to investigate English teachers’ awareness, practice and
challenges pertaining to the Use of vocabulary teaching strategies; English teachers in Jimma
Town Secondary Schools in Focus. To achieve the intended objectives of this study, descriptive
survey research design was used with both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study
was conducted in Oromia regional state in Jimma zone, Jimma town high school in 2014 E.C.
accordingly, the participants of the study were 40 English language teachers’ of the selected
high schools. Thus, the researcher employed convenience sampling technique to select Jimma
Town secondary schools and sample of the teachers were selected through comprehensive
sampling technique. Data for the present study was collected through questionnaire, semi-
structured interview, and classroom observation. Then, the collected data were analyzed using
both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings of the study showed that teachers
awareness to teach vocabulary through VTS was high extent (high awareness), on the other
hand, their practice became below an average or practiced rarely. Furthermore, the study
revealed that EFL teachers taught vocabular in classes but, they did not employ different
vocabulary teaching strategies. The findings also indicated that EFL teachers mainly gave
emphasis on definition, synonym, antonyms, context clue, collocation, communicative vocabulary
teaching strategies and collaborative learning teaching strategy than other kinds of strategies in
their vocabulary teaching while observed in classroom observation. It was found that the
teachers lacked practical skills on the implementation of different types of vocabulary teaching
strategies in EFL classes. That’s why they faced high extent challenges.As a result, the practices
of vocabulary teaching strategies were not given sufficient attention at Jimma Town Secondary
School. Finally, recommendations were given based on the above findings. These
recommendations were: the EFL researchers were recommended that creating meaningful
vocabulary teaching strategies should be practiced widely in Jimma Town secondary schools.
