The Role Of Literature In An Integrated Development Of Grade 7 Amharic Language Reading And Writing Skills

Abstract

The aims of this study were to investigate the roles of literary texts in an integrated development the process of reading and writing skills. Data was gathered by means of pre and post tests and interviews. The grade seven students of Serako elementary school participated in this experimental study. Out of all grade seven sections, section B and D were selected by the simple random sampling techniques and grouped as experimental and controlled consecutively. In the beginning of the study, the pre-test was administered to measure the reading and writing competence of the students. Then the experimental and controlled groups were taught both skills through literary texts and regular materials with the rate of three days per a week and 90 minutes per a day for six consecutive weeks. After the experimental teaching, a post- test was administered and the result of the two tests was analyzed by various statistical techniques. The average result of the pre- test, as computed by ANOVA, it showed that there was no significant difference in reading and writing ability of the participants’ two groups. However, the post- test result of the ANCOVA computation demonstrated that, there was statistically significant mean score difference (of about 47%) between the two groups. The difference caused that the experimental groups taught using literary texts which make it possible the development of reading and writing skills in an integrated manner. The technique helped the experimental groups to score a better than the controlled. The interviewed students, who taught through literary texts, suggested that the lessons were enjoyable. Besides, the teacher stated that the students enjoyed the teaching learning process, they actively participated and they demonstrated progress in terms of explaining and writing what they had heard earlier. As a matter of fact, literary texts have a notable role in the development of students’ integrated Amharic language reading and writing skills. The findings of the study suggest that such texts should be given emphasis in the process of teaching these skills in the target language.