A Study of the Incorporation of Student-Centered Instructional Approach in Communicative English Language Skills I Curriculum Materials and Its Implication for Classroom Practice: Robe College of Teachers’ Education in Focus

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to evaluate the incorporation of student-centered instructional approach in Communicative English Language Skills I course curriculum materials (teachers’ education curriculum framework, a syllabus on the course and the module on the course) and its classroom practice at Robe College of Teachers’ Education. A pragmatic paradigm, a mixed approach and convergent parallel research design were employed. While content analysis was used to collect the data from the curriculum materials, the questionnaire and classroom observation were employed to collect the data regarding teacher’s classroom practice. Both the curriculum materials analysis and the teacher’s practice were measured against randomly selected four parameters of the application of the approach, namely alternative assessment, language skills, language skills integrated teaching approach, focus on meaning and learner autonomy. The curriculum materials analysis indicated that both the framework and the syllabus moderately reflect the approach from the perspective of learner autonomy parameter; very poorly reflect the approach from alternative assessment and focus on meaning parameters and only the syllabus that suggests the integration of the four macro skills; the tasks in the module do not reflect the approach. Regarding the practice of the approach, the data collected from the pre-service teachers’ questionnaire showed that there is a moderate practice of EL skills integrated teaching parameter, there are very low practices of alternative assessment and learner autonomy parameters; there is no practice of the focus on meaning parameter. The result of researcher’s observation indicated that there is no practice of the approach from all the four parameters. The researcher concluded that it is the traditional teacher-centered instructional approach that is still practiced in Oromia Colleges of Teachers’ Education in English Language classes at the expense of the student-centered instructional approach. Thus, the researcher recommends that the candidates should plan on the learning and assessment tasks; the curriculum designing procedure should follow bottom-up approach.