This study aimed to identify the challenges affecting teacher practice of phonological awareness (PA) in the first-grade classrooms of the teaching of the Koorete language. The study adopted the descriptive research design using the survey method and exploratory case study technique, and it was conducted in selected schools in Amaro in the Southern part of Ethiopia. The qualitative method was used to observe and interview the selected participating teachers, and questionnaires were used with the thirty native-language teachers selected. Thirty participating schools were selected through stratified sampling, and 30 native-language teachers were selected through targeted sampling from the selected schools based on their qualifications, experience, and recommendations for merit. Classroom observations, in-depth semistructured interviews, and questionnaires were used to collect data. The recorded data was then transcribed, translated, analyzed, and then it was thematically discussed. The results of the study showed that a lack of subject content and pedagogical knowledge, inadequate teaching materials, inadequate teacher-training programs, a lack of an enabling, literacy-rich environment, and a lack of in-service training in the first grades pose major challenges. The study recommends that teachers need to be adequately equipped with content and pedagogical awareness, to be provided with phonological awareness resources, and they require support by way of in-service training to enhance the teaching of native-language reading skills in early grades. Finally, all stakeholders need to work on the access and quality of textbooks and supplementary reading materials, adopt explicit and systematic teaching practices, organize in-service training, and create a literacy-rich environment for the teacher education program.
This study deals with the negation of declarative and interrogative main clauses, imperatives, and non-verbal and existential sentences in Hamar, an Aroid language of the Omotic language family. It describes the ways in which negation is expressed in the language, and positions the discussion in light of cross-linguistic observations made by Dahl (1979, 2010), Payne (1985), Miestamo (2005, 2007), Eriksen (2011) and others. The morpheme -t- is used in Hamar to mark negation in both verbal and non-verbal clauses. This means that Hamar has a morphological or affixal negation (Dahl 2010). The language uses two different sets of subject agreement affixes for the affirmative and negative counterparts. While affirmative sentences employ a shortened pronoun, a set of agreement suffixes is used in the negative. In this study, it is suggested that the negative verbs may have preserved older subject agreement morphemes which are now lost in the affirmative, as negatives are less affected by innovation, cf. Zargulla in Azeb 2009 and Canadian French in Poplack 2001. Moreover, close interaction is reported between negation and TAM (Tense, Aspect and Mood) categories. For example, some of the aspect/tense categories that occur in the affirmative are neutralised in the negative. Negative constructions in Hamar are not only different from their affirmative counterparts due to the presence of the negation morpheme –t-, but also in terms of subject agreement marking and tense/aspect categories. As a result, it is argued that Hamar has an asymmetric negation system, cf. Miestamo 2005.
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