Addressing the Factors Inhibiting Students’ Participation in Classroom Interactive Teaching and Learning in Jimma University, Ethiopia

Abstract

This action research was conducted in 2007 with these aims: to discover the stressors to active students’ participation in classroom; attempt solving the identified stressors immediately; and to design some mitigating measures for both short term and long term solutions. Although Ethiopian Ministry of Education stresses the need for employing interactive teaching methods, this has been frustrated due to number of problems. The glaring ones are: unpreparedness of teachers to change their teaching methods; the reluctance of students to comply as they are used to teacher-centered methods and culturally encapsulated in male-chauvinism; students’ poor English language background and absolute poverty and so on. There are also problems of policy conflicts; insufficient learning and teaching materials; noises; and so o, all combined to inform this research-design. With patience and continuous enlightenment of the students and application of more students’ centered methods, there were noticeable changes toward the desired attitudes. A matrix mapping out the problems, what was done to instantly address each of the problems, assessment of the effectiveness of the measures adopted and concise suggestions for further re-enforcement of desired learning behaviour were given. The key concepts are: Action Research; Inhibitors of Learning and Teaching; Interactive Teaching Methods; Classroom Management; and Gender Issues.