An Enquiry into Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions on the Role of Grade 12 English Textbook in Enhancing the Strategic Competence Abilities of Students: The Case of Wolaita Sodo Secondary and Preparatory School

Tafese Bosha

doi:10.7176/jlll/73-01

Abstract

The purpose of this study was an enquiry into teachers’ and students’ perceptions on the role of grade 12 English textbook in enhancing the strategic competence abilities of students: The case of Wolaita Sodo Secondary and Preparatory School. Descriptive Survey research design was employed for the current study. To collect the necessary data for the study, semi-structured interview for two teachers, questionnaire for sixty-five students and document analysis were employed. To analyze the collected data, qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis were employed. That is, data collected through questionnaire were analyzed employing statistical tools such as frequency and percentage using SPSS version 20, while responses obtained from interview were described and discussed. In addition, the data obtained from document analysis which were presented in tables and explained qualitatively to validate and triangulate the data obtained from interview and questionnaire. From the analysis of data, different findings were obtained. The study depicted that different communicative contents and activities that cultivate strategic competence abilities of students presented in Grade 12 English Textbook. The data collected from students via questionnaire show that most students were not interested in the communicative contents and activities that can enhance different communicative abilities of students. The data collected from teachers via semi-structured interview show that some of the communicative contents and activities that enhance students’ different communicative abilities need to be revised and organized in the way that help students. The result of content analysis also substantiated that some contents and activities need to be revised. Based on the findings, conclusions were drawn and recommendations were forwarded to improve the perceptions of teachers and students as well as to revise some contents of the textbook. Keywords: Perceptions, Textbook, Strategic Competence and communicative Contents DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/73-01 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Highlights

Grant (1990: 13) claims that communicative textbooks create possibilities for students to communicate in the language because they consist of many communicative activities
The remaining, 12.3% respondents have no idea about the communicative contents and activities in the textbook that enhance strategic abilities of students
In respect to item number 1, as it can be seen from Table 19, most of the respondents, 55.3% thought that the communicative contents and activities in the textbook cannot enhance students to use range of communication strategies. 30.8% of the respondents thought that communicative contents and activities in the www.iiste.org textbook help students to use range of communication strategies

Summary

Introduction

Grant (1990: 13) claims that communicative textbooks create possibilities for students to communicate in the language because they consist of many communicative activities. Strategic competence consists of using of using communication strategies. These strategies come into play when learners are unable to express what they want to say because they lack the resources to do so successfully. They compensate for this either by changing their original intension or by searching for other means of expression. The significant implications of strategic competence for teaching and learning are to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language, to use range of communication strategies and to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies

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