EXPLORING TEACHERS’ PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF VOCABULARY TEACHING IN GRADE 10 EFL CLASSES: TATEKLESIRA SENIORSECONDARY SCHOOLIN FOCUS

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore practices and challenges of vocabulary teaching in Grade 10 EFL classroom: Tatek-Lesira Senior Secondary school in focus. To this end, descriptive case study design was employed. Then, eight Grade 10 English language teachers were chosen using comprehensive sampling technique for classroom observation, semi- structured interview, and textbook analysis. Thus, the data were analyzed qualitatively. The finding shows that even though there were a number of approaches to teach vocabulary, teachers were not committed to use them appropriately and frequently. They only depend on some of them. They also stressed on some of the aspects of vocabulary activities even these were also repeated. There were found a number of challenges frequently affecting teachers to teach vocabulary. The results also indicated that it was unlikely that students had successfully acquired most of the 683 vocabulary items designed in their textbook. As a result of these findings, it was concluded that the various aspects and approaches of vocabulary teaching at this school in relation to the above cases was found to be less practiced by EFL teachers. Based on this conclusion, it is recommended that teachers should be aware of the use of various aspects of vocabulary beyond its meaning and develop favorable tendency to practice vocabularies in various approaches besides giving possible remedies accordingly to the prominent challenges they face while teaching vocabulary.