Reading in the Primary Cycle of Ethiopian Education

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An Interactive Approach to Reading

Following the Top Down approach, a more balanced view has come about. Maxwell and Meiser (1997:184) state “Emphasis has shifted from the text to interactions between text and reader; that is, what the reader brings to the reading is as important as the words in the texts. Text provide many possibilities for interpretation.” A good example of this is the traditional Ethiopian church schools where senior students are taught the multiple interpretations of verses in the Bible. It has been stated that up to thirty-two different interpretations have been derived from a single verse in Amharic. This is not surprising as Widdowson (1984:158) says “literary writers say less than would be referentially acceptable, leaving us deliberately in the dark about their intended meanings and in general making a virtue of ambiguity”. McCormic (1988:77) associates the interactive model of reading with the philosophy of phenomenology that does not focus solely on the Being (text) nor on the Consciousness (reader) but rather on the point of contact (reading process) or interaction between the two. Based on an interactive model of reading, the provision of supplementary readers should enable students to enhance both their reading skills as well as their schemata of the world and thus bring about a higher level of reading proficiency in students through the provision of the opportunity of many more literacy events beyond those made available in the classroom. Williams (1984:203) states, “There is now a fair degree of evidence that what is taught does not necessarily equal what is learnt, and that teaching a form does not automatically assist the learning of the form.” Therefore the provision of supplementary readers should assist the students to acquire English in their own preferred order. Modern conceptions of reading have added social factors like an acquisitionally rich environment and the socio-economic standing for students as affecting reading skills.
As a result of this new approach to understanding reading, the way of how to teach reading has also had to be revised. The main theory about how reading ought to be taught revolves around what is called the ‘Reader Response Theory’. This theory maintains that if reading is the meaning derived from the interaction between reader and text and each reader is unique, then individual reading experiences are also unique and even repeated readings of a single text by the same reader cannot be identical. As a result, teachers should not be teaching students to memorise ‘canons of literature’ or to repeat the interpretations of literary authorities. Instead the teachers should be encouraging the students to respond to literary texts in an informed way, fully appreciating how their individual personality traits, moods, memories and experiences are affecting their enjoyment and understanding of the text. This gives a secondary role to the mountains of factual information about the social context in which the work was written, the biographical details of the author and the interpretations of others. Instead, it turns the spotlight on how the reader responds to the text. If the reader finds that reading about and discussing the author, the setting and the interpretation and responses of others, enhances his response then he can study them. However, they remain simply props to the central action of his reading and appreciating a text.
Although emphasising the reading that takes place in literary texts, such a concept is still valid while reading for factual information. The readers’ expectations, predictions, prior knowledge and thinking schemata, still make the reading of a text unique to the reader, though admittedly not as pronounced as in the reading of literary texts. Consequently, a reader reading a road map of a place he is familiar with, might visualise the places on the map unlike a reader not familiar to the place.

The Role of Reading in English

Because Ethiopia is a ‘dual circle’ user of English, students need to be proficient at reading English to succeed properly in education. Starting from secondary school, where English becomes the medium of instruction, most reference books are written only in English. As a result, English is the language, which provides access to knowledge.
Although problems in listening could be and are overcome by teachers through the use of Amharic or other local languages during classroom lectures, students are forced to rely on their own skills without assistance, when it comes to reading books. It has been pointed out (NOE, 2001a:5) that most educational assessment conducted by UNESCO in African countries include a focus on reading as it is known that good reading skills, are a key factor for learning in other areas.
Crystal (1997:24) makes a convincing case for the use of English by pointing out its unrivalled role as the global language for international relations, international news, travel, safety, education and communications. Obviously, Ethiopian students want to be in touch with the latest thinking and research, and developing proficient reading skills is their best way to do this. This is especially true in Ethiopia, where in remote places lacking electricity and modern facilities, only printed material is readily available for the students. Nevertheless, most Ethiopian students do not master reading adequately. Instead they end up with fascinating skills of memorisation and recall, whereby they memorise whole books and simply regurgitate the contents on demand. This lack of sufficient comprehension, evaluation and synthesis has repercussions for the whole educational system. A particular case that illustrates this was a second year teacher trainee who memorised a thirty-two page handout and reproduced it in a final examination including all the typographical mistakes in the original. The fact that this trainee went on to graduate top of his batch and was awarded the gold medal is a clear indication that the whole system encourages such an approach to reading.
Study skill courses, which equip students with reading, note-taking and other skills to cope with their academic courses are a common feature of a lot of preparatory course for foreign students joining institutions of learning in England. Unfortunately, Ethiopian students are never consciously equipped with such skills.
Starting from Grade One, they are taught English as a language course and this continues until the end of their education, without any obvious preparations for the switch to English as a medium of instruction after the second cycle of primary education. Starting from Grade Nine all textbooks (except Ethiopian language ones) and reference books found in the libraries are written only in English. Students are expected to cover a lot of content in the subject areas in English, but have not been trained adequately in reading skills. Reading is given equal coverage to all the other language skills, despite the fact that it is the fundamental skill that they require to be successful in their secondary education.
Ironically, reading in English has the most pivotal role in secondary education, yet students are not trained to read effectively. Instead of being encouraged to understand and generate new ideas from what they have understood, they are simply taught to repeat almost verbatim ides from the text. Students therefore mostly develop amazing skills of simply recall and lack other skills like synthesis and appreciation. Unfortunately, the inclusion of extensive reading passages in the English textbooks have only recently taken place. Previous textbooks had factual passages with comprehension questions that only demanded regurgitation of facts from the passage. The new extensive reading sections allow the students to read for pleasure, yet even these passages tend to be skipped by teachers anxious to cover the textbooks by the end of the semester. Teachers are more interested in drilling grammar and other skills that are usually tested in final examinations, than encouraging students to develop other skills that may prove more difficult to test in the standard multiple choice format of examinations.

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1. Chapter One : General Background 
1.1 Ethiopia’s General Situation
1.2 Ethiopia’s Linguistic Situation and Language Policy
1.3 Medium of Instruction
1.4 Historical Overview of English in Ethiopia
1.5 Background to the Ethiopian Socio-Economic Situation
1.6 Background of the Ethiopian Education System
1.7 General Structure of the Ethiopian Education System
1.8 Learning and Disabilities
1.9 The Ethiopian Education Sector Development Program
1.10 English in the ESDP
1.11. Basic Information on Region and Schools
2. Chapter Two: Reading in the Primary Cycle of Ethiopian Education 
2.1 What is Reading? Basic Definitions
2.2 General Approaches to Teaching Reading
2.3 The Role of Reading in English
2.4 Textbooks and Learning Materials
2.5 The Primary Reader Scheme
2.6 Teaching Methodology in Ethiopia
2.7 The Reading Syllabus
2.8 Reading in the Grade Eight Textbook
2.9 Reading in the Grade Eight National English Examination
2.10 Testing Reading
3. Chapter Three: A Review of Related Literature 
3.1 A Review of Ethiopian Research on Reading
3.2 The Conceptual Framework for Extensive Reading
3.3 A Review of International Extensive Reading Research
3.4 Using Children’s Literature
4. Chapter Four: Methodology 
4.1 Statement of the Problem
4.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study
4.3 Research Methodology
4.4. Delimitations
5 Chapter Five: Findings and Analysis 
5.1 Reading Levels
5.2 Statistical Description of Results
5.3 Inferential Analysis of Results (t-test)
5.4 Staff Questionnaire and Observations
5.5 Utilisation Capacity of Government Owned Primary Schools in Addis Ababa
5.6 Implications for the ESDP
6. Chapter Six: Summary and Recommendations 
6.1 Limitations
6.2 Summary
6.3 Recommendations
6.4 Revisiting the Primary Reader Scheme
6.5 General Societal Implications
Appendices 
Bibliography

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