A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS STUDENTES’ ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS IN WOLKITE CITY ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

This research is a comparative study about wolkite city administration government and private elementary schools’ students’ speaking skills. To achieve the objectives of the study 150 government and private schools’ students and 10 teachers were randomly selected from six schools (i.e. three governments and three private). In this study, the questionnaire and classroom observation were used as the major tool for data collection, and interview was used to cross check the results of the data collected from questionnaires. To know teachers’ teaching speaking skill, 24 questions were prepared and distributed for ten teachers. On the other hand, to know students’ learning of speaking skill, 17 questions were prepared and distributed for 150 students. All the questionnaires for both teachers and students were filled and returned. To see how speaking instructions are conducted, an observation checklist was prepared. The observation checklist contains eight evaluation criteria. In the analysis of the data, simple statistical procedures were used which made the interpretation and discussion of the results easier and clearer. The discussion was made by making use of percentage and the result of all the three tools were triangulated. The study reached a finding that indicates private schools’ students have better speaking skills, they are practiced speaking whenever and where ever they can after school, with any English speaker. However, government schools’ students have poor speaking skill and speaking instructions were not conducted properly teachers should prepare interesting speaking lessons that can capture learners’ attention. Given enough time for practice to their students. Teachers should use teaching materials, and should act as facilitators not dominator or silent sitter in language class room.