THE PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF TEACHING GRAMMAR INTEGRATED WITH READING SKILLS: DOYOGENA SECONDARY SCHOOL GRADE 9 STUDENTS IN FOCUS

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate the practices and challenges of teaching grammar integrated with reading with reference to Doyegena Secondary School. In the school, there were 500 students and three English teachers. Among them,100 students were selected using simple random sampling techniques, and three teachers were taken using the purposive sampling method. Three kinds of data collection tools, namely questionnaire, interview, and observation were used in this study. The questionnaires and classroom observationswere analyzed through quantitatively and interview were analyzed qualitatively including description, frequency counting and percentages. The findings show that improper teaching of grammar integrated with reading techniques and methods was practiced in the school. A large number of the respondents have only the knowledge of teaching and learning grammar in a deductive method.Most English teachers did n’t have adequate knowledge about inductive grammar teaching approaches and can not implement inductive teaching and learning approaches in EFL classes. Teachers were dominated by writing extended grammar rule notes.The most frequently used grammar teaching techniques are not contextuals. Whereas the inductive grammar teaching method is more advanced for real-life communication and the students can have multi–skills, but no time was given for students to practice grammar incontext.As a result, it is concluded that teachers failed to use an inductive grammar teaching approach to deliver grammar lessons. This is because of challenges that affect the practices of teaching grammar integrated with reading. To that end, this study provides recommendations that could bring change in the practice of teaching grammar integrated with reading in secondary schools. Teachers should need professional development training courses to make them aware of language integration and forget their former traditional grammar teaching experience and learners should take into consideration,’ the necessary for learners when they prepare grammar activities. English teachers should provide different kinds of grammar integrated with reading activitiesto practice the item that help learners to be exposed to various opportunities to apply their grammar integration.