ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES, LANGUAGE STUDIES, JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE Field of study: Applied Linguistics and Development Exploring the Nature and Role of Classroom Interaction in Developing Early Grade Reading Skills: The case of Afan Oromo Mother Tongue at Abdi Bori Primary School BY: GETACHEW TESHOME TASISSA ID.No:GSR/0885/05 Mob:0911818453/0920619037 Email:[email protected] Supervisor: Nuru Mohammed(Dr.) December, 2019 Addis Ababa Addis Ababa University School of Graduate Studies College of Humanities, Language Studies Journalism and Communication Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Exploring the Nature and Role of Classroom Interaction in Developing Early Grade Reading skills: The case of Afan Oromo mother tongue By Getachew Teshome Tasissa Supervisor Nuru Mohammed (PhD) December, 2019 Addis Ababa Addis Ababa University School of Graduate Studies College of Humanities, Language Studies Journalism and Communication Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Exploring the Nature and Role of Classroom Interaction in Developing Early Grade Reading skills: The case of Afan Oromo mother tongue By Getachew Teshome Tasissa A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Applied Linguistics and Development (ALD) December, 2019 Addis Ababa Addis Ababa University School of Graduate Studies College of Humanities, Language Studies Journalism and Communication Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Exploring the Nature and Role of Classroom Interaction in Developing Early Grade Reading skills: The case of Afan Oromo mother tongue By Getachew Teshome Approved by Board of Examiners __________________________ _______________________ Advisor Signature __________________________ _______________________ Examiner Signature __________________________ _______________________ Examiner Signature Declaration D I, Getachew Teshome, hereby declare that this thesis is the product of my own effort and has not been presented to any university in the same or different form to merit a PhD degree other than that for which I am now a candidate, and that all sources used for the thesis have been duly acknowledged. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While reflecting on the many people who have contributed to the fulfillment of this dream, I am reminded of an old saying, “If you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know it didn’t get there by itself.” First, I must thank my heavenly Father, without whom I would never have had the energy or perseverance to complete this study. His mercy and faithfulness has been a constant source of love, comfort, and strength. On a more human level, there are many people around me who are instrumental in the completion of this dissertation, and to whom I am deeply grateful, and who are as many as the years I spent in the study. First, there are members of my family and I am so blessed to have them, and deeply grateful. Though my dad is no longer with me physically and see me graduate, he is with me in spirit; his faith, love and his pride is always in me. His absence in my life makes me lonely, but he is a catalyst for me to become the person I am today. My mom’s words of encouragement and promised prayers were as comforting as the meals she cooked for me during schooling. She is the only one, who stayed when everyone left, and I will treasure her love and respect. My brother, Biyena was incredible. I can never thank him enough for selflessly taking on so many extra responsibilities for my family and me during the entire course of the study. This tremendous journey into academia took place in the face of indescribable personal challenges I have ever had. There are many friends that had seen me struggle through this process and offered me words of encouragement, and I will always be grateful. Secondly, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nuru Mohammed, who always encouraged, and supported me whenever I had questions, and more importantly at the times when I lost hope, gave me confidence in the fact that I was walking in the right path. I certainly value his valuable insights, scholarly experience and the thought-provoking questions that made me think and rethink through the design of my study. He would always listen to my thoughts and directs my attention to look at the issue more broadly. He taught me how to view the world with different lenses; how to focus, and how to think critically. His positive thought contributed not only to the completion of this dissertation but also validation of its importance. I always remember his friendliness, kind treatment and courtesy he showed me in and out of the office that helped me ease my worries and confusion during challenging moments of the research. His ii personal qualities taught me patience, kindness, punctuality, honesty, and virtue. I consider myself so fortunate and privileged to have Dr Nuru as my supervisor. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable cooperation of the teachers and their students who took part in this research by allowing me into their classes to record their oral interactions and willingly giving up their time for the interview questions. Without their goodwill, accessing such valuable data would have been impossible. The students in the classroom were willing and eager to participate. They were delighted in demonstrating their literacy skills and openly explained their thought processes to the best of their abilities. They welcomed me into their world and generously shared their talk, their laughter, and their thinking about reading lessons and life. There was no a day I spent with them that I didn’t learn something new. I am extremely grateful to the cooperation of my fellow PhD candidates, like Birhanu Bekana, Getahun Melaku and others, who always gave me a hand in difficult situations, supported me to work and elaborate on my research topic through giving suggestions and showing examples from the very beginning to the end of the process. They listened and gave me encouraging comments while I vented frustrations. I will forever be indebted and also owe much to their candid comments at various stages of the research. Their scholarly expertise, constructive feedback, and thought-provoking challenges opened my eyes to many facets of the research writing. They guided and inspired me when the road to success seemed impossible. Without their cooperation and encouragement this journey into academia would have been difficult if not impossible, and I have always valued and appreciated their intellectually exciting experience. I also thank Obo Fikadu Bayissa and Samuel Leykun for their material and moral support. Last but not least, I express my sincere appreciation to Abdi Bori School Director, Gemechis Tesso, who patiently organized and facilitated the data gathering processes by convincing the teachers and the students to spend their time with me sometimes outside their class times. Moreover, I am truly grateful to these and many other people in my personal and professional lives for providing me with seven years of continuous support and guidance in what turned out to be one of the most tremendous accomplishments in my life. This adventure has made me a better educator by teaching me how to be more organized and critical as a reflective practitioner, and by helping me to realize how much I still need to learn. iii ABSTRACT The objective of the study was to explore the nature and role of classroom interaction in the development of early grade reading skills. Specifically, it tried to address mediational strategies teachers and students used in creating meaning and understanding, theoretical assumptions that inform teachers’ classroom practices and the nature of classroom activities in early grade reading classes. The study focused on teacher-student and student-student interactions as mediators and mediatee in co- constructing meaning and skills. To this end, ethnohraphic research design was employed on Grades 1, 2, and 3 students at Abdi Bori Primary School at Mendi, West Wollega. The school was selected purposively as it was a private school catering for better quality education than other schools in the district. To achieve its objectives, qualitative data were collected using different instruments, such as non-participant observation with field notes, interview and document analysis and analyzed qualitatively. The result uncovered that the three classrooms observed were mostly teacher-controlled and textbook-directed that limited students’ active participation. It revealed a mixed mode of teaching: traditional transmissive, constructivist(joint discovery) and dialogic methods with more focus on the former. Teachers controlled content and direction of the lesson through frequent use of display questions that limited extended classroom interaction. However, when constructivist approach was employed, classroom interaction created better learning opportunities and co-construction of knowledge and skills, through the proper mediation of more knowledgeable others, who used both verbal and non- verbal modes of interaction. Mediation strategies used by participant teachers and students, like repetition, summarization, prosodic chopping, elicitation and uptake questions, significantly contributed to the meaning making and skill development processes. The study also disclosed and acknowledged the multimodal nature of early grade reading lessons, like