THE EFFECTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLUB ACTIVITIES ON STUDENTS’ LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS AND ATTITUDE CHANGE: WOLDEHANE PREPARATORY SCHOOL IN FOCUS

Abstract

Enlish Lannguage Teaching in Ethiopian secondary schools is bound in the classrooms. This is partly because of the absence of research based working cases of the effects of English language clubs. This experimental study, therefore, examined the Effects of speaking and listening club activities on students speaking and listening and their attitude to club activities. Sixty students were selected for the purpose of which (n=30) were experimental and the other (n=30) were the control group. Data was collected using speaking and listning tests (pre and post) and attitude questionnaire. The statistical results of the study showed that there was a significant mean difference between the scores of students’ listening and speaking tests in favour of the experimental group. This revealed that English Language Clubs have improved students’ test result of listening and speaking compared to the classroom only approach. As the independent t-test values of the speaking test indicated (t (10.04), df=58, p=0.00) was found to be statistically significant. In the same way, as inferential statistical values of the independent t-test for listening test indicated (t (9.643), df=58, p=0.00), it was found to be statistically significant. Similiraly, the students’ atitude to English Language Club activities has increased since the paired samples t-test values (t (4.25), df =28, p=0.000) was significant at 0.05 level of significance. Consequently, it was concluded that English Language Clubs can significantly improve students speaking and listening ability and can positively influence students’ attitude to club activities. Therefore, English Language Clubs should be adopted to wider scale of Ethiopian secondary schools. Nevertheless, as this study focused onlyon two skills, the researcher suggests future studies may need to further focus on the effects of other skills.