ASSESSING THE PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF USING COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR TEACHING APPROACH IN ENGLISH CLASSROOMS: GRADE NINE STUDENTS OF THREE SELECTED SCHOOLS IN GEDEB ASASSA WOREDA IN FOCUS

Abstract The purpose of this study was to assess the practices and challenges of communicative grammar teaching approach in secondary schools. To this end, three secondary schools in Asassa woreda were purposively selected to conduct the study. All 6 English language teachers who taught English at grade nine and 320 (30%) grade nine students from the three schools were subjects of the study. Descriptive research design was used to conduct a study and necessary data were collected through questionnaire for students, interview and classroom observation for teachers and document analysis. Then, the collected data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study revealed that teachers have high theoretical understanding of communicative grammar teaching. However, they were not practically applying their knowledge in actual classroom. On the other hand, the study revealed that grammar lessons in the students’ textbook were not helpful to implement communicative grammar effectively.The study further showed that teachers did not present grammar lesson in context and failed to apply pair and group work in grammar lessons. Based on the findings it is recommended that training institutions need to give high attention to practical application of communicative grammar teaching. Additionally, teachers need to adapt different communicative activities and use effective techniques that will help students to develop their grammar knowledge. Moreover, Grammar lessons in grade 9 student textbook needs to be modified.