Teachers’ beliefs system of teaching reading and their classroom practices: with reference to high schools of Jimma and East Wollega Zones

Teachers’ belief system in teaching reading and their classroom practices has an impact on literacy achievement and willingness to engage with literacy-related activities. Research suggests numerous views to account for the influence on practice of teachers’ beliefs. Teachers’ beliefs affect not only their teaching, but also filter new input, suggesting significant implications for the implementation of educational innovations and teacher development. This research sets out to gain insight into teachers’ beliefs of teaching reading and their classroom practices in EFL. A case study of 40 EFL teachers from eight high schools in two Oromia regions selected purposefully and conveniently. One of the data gathering instruments in this case study was a questionnaire that inquires the participants’ beliefs of teaching reading related to the classroom practices and how these beliefs influence their classroom practices in teaching reading. In addition to the questionnaire, and an FGD with participants were held to examine their beliefs in detail. Finally, in order to see whether participants’ beliefs matched with their actual practices in their classrooms or not, the sample courses of the participants and the students were observed and recorded for triangulation for the data. The classroom observations of the courses as well as the recordings of those courses were also examined by the researchers, and the findings were verified by another co-rater in order to increase the trustworthiness of the data. The analysis of responses of participants to the questionnaire, recorded classroom observations and interviews were presented qualitatively in the findings section. Results of the study showed that EFL teachers hold their own belief system of teaching reading; however their belief was incongruently implemented in the classroom. Finally, the study provides some recommendations to the subjects which could help to improve their everyday classroom practices to ongoing critical reflection.