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Improving English Language Skills and Methods through Short Term Trainings: Bridging High School and University Teachers

The purpose of this article was to show how universities can make interventions in improving the classroom practices of high schools and preparatory schools English language teachers. The data gathering instrument was questionnaire and interview from secondary and preparatory school teachers of Tabor cluster that include Tabor Secondary and Preparatory school, Alamura High School Gemeto-Gale Secondary School, and Tula Secondary and Preparatory school and two school principals. The teachers received short term English language trainings from university teachers. It was, therefore, reflections of the teachers on improvements the training brought on their teaching skills on one hand and their attitudes on “the-to-be” links between the university instructors and high school teachers on the other hand. The link and the interventions envisaged to bring continuous improvements in the English language skills of secondary school English language teachers and thereby the skills of their students who ultimately and continuously join universities. As the study was based on the teachers and the principals who took part in the training, the sample size considered was the whole population, 40. Since the data was obtained qualitatively through interview and quantitatively through questionnaire, the analysis method also followed mixed methods. The quantitative data was analyzed descriptively with SPSS version 20, and the data obtained through interview was grouped into themes with open-code 3.6 and then described textually. The study showed that the short term trainings, which were based on the trainees’ pre-identified areas of English language skill gaps, helped to alleviate the gaps of the teachers to a greater extent. It also showed that there are other areas of English language skill gaps that need further trainings. Regarding the teachers’ attitude on the high schools and University teachers’ professional link, it was found out that high school teachers need supports from universities to improve their own and their students’ English language skills. It was also discovered that the link among school and university teachers so far is very weak. The trainees suggested areas of their special concerns to improve their English language skills, and areas university teachers may benefit from high schools.


Introduction
In this section, we have provided the background in which the study was carried out, the ideas, terminologies and assumptions about in-service training and the state of art in an attempt to secure quality education. We also provided the main purpose and specific objectives of the study.

Background of the Study and the State of the Art
The strength of any education system largely depends on the quality of teachers. In-service education and training, thus, focuses on the need for teachers to adjust effectively to the rapid changes in the education system. It also helps the processes of improving the quality of teachers' content knowledge and methods of instruction in the classroom.
According to Bagwandeen and Louw (1993), the teacher is supposed to be the main influence in the classroom and for that matter cannot afford to lag behind continuous professional development. Walters (1994) claims that the origin of in-service training is rooted in the assumption that a trained teacher is not a finished product. For that matter, in-service training is intended to support and assist the professional development of teachers. It is also an opportunity given to serving teachers to expand their knowledge and improve their teaching skills. Bagwandeen and Louw (1993) emphasize the importance of continuous development stating that teacher are under severe threat and need to improve their expertise, knowledge and skills through in-service education and training. They also believe that, and indeed, for progress in education to be of any value, teachers as professionals must participate in their own intellectual growth.
In-service education and training in English language teaching is aimed at developing English language teachers teaching skills and methods. It contributes to teachers' content knowledge, classroom management skills and techniques of teaching. The training programs are sometimes used as a platform for teachers to understand the policies, principles and procedures of the teaching profession. In-service education and training therefore has a key role in developing the skills and capabilities of teachers.
In Ethiopia, one often hears transformation, change, reform, development, and growth. In-service training is part of the development program. It is about transformation, change, and reform of the education system. In most cases, in-service training programs are organized in the form of workshops.
These workshops are supposed to develop teachers' knowledge and skills so as to improve on their classroom practices. Changes in the classroom practices may be attributed to many factors. Among these are changes in the curriculum, reforms in methodology, new assessment practices, classroom management skills and the introduction of technology. Currently, changes occur at an alarming rate in the field of language pedagogy that English teachers need to adapt in order to meet the demands and challenges brought about by the changes. This necessitates a professional development program that helps English language teachers cope up with the current changes. Accordingly, teacher trainers emphasize that teachers need development by means of in-service training, written sources, seminars, symposiums, supervision and so on (Freeman, 1989;Fanselow, 1988).
This article, therefore, focuses on short term in-service training at Hawassa city administration, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt Studies in English Language Teaching Vol. 3, No. 4, 2015 308 Published by SCHOLINK INC. is found in the Southern Nation Nationalities and People Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia. There are eight public secondary schools in the city and the schools are organized under two clusters namely, the Tabor cluster and the Addis Ketema cluster. Each cluster includes four secondary schools. Therefore, Tabor cluster comprises Hawassa Tabor, Alamura, Gemeto-Gale and Tulla secondary schools, whereas the Addis Ketema cluster includes Addis Ketema, Adare, and Millennium schools.
As residents, English language teachers and trainers, and colleagues to English language teachers in and around Hawassa city, the investigators made the following observations with informal discussions and interactions with a number of English language teachers: 1) Most of the in-service training programs are organized during school terms, either at school hours or in the week-end.
2) Most of the training programs place more emphasis on the implementation of Continuous Professional Development activities which usually include individual teacher's effort to reflect in/on his/her actions. There are limited or no specific trainings on methodology, classroom management, and content knowledge and assessment techniques. These specific areas were understood as areas of concern for secondary school English language teachers since they are associated with effective teaching.
3) It is not customary to conduct teachers' need analysis before an in-service training session, and 4) There are no follow ups after the training sessions to monitor the effects of the trainings on the teachers' classroom teaching.
Intrigued by these, the researchers, decided to take a critical look at the quality of in-service education and training programs for English language teachers in Tabor cluster of the Hawassa city administration in the Southern Nation, Nationalities and People Region (SNNPR). Thus, we chose the topic so that English language teachers play a key role in the successful implementation of reforms in bringing quality English language teaching. For a quality English language teaching, committed and dedicated English language teachers with adequate knowledge and skills are needed. But English teachers in high schools lack some of these qualities; a few come from not English language teaching training background but other related fields of studies. This fact has been expounded by Hailu (2013, p. 10) as follows: In There has been different motivation factors, including those argued for so far, for professional a development of teachers. Aichile and Coxford (1994, p. 45) states that "most teachers are motivated to take on professional development programs because they wish to become better teachers". By becoming better teachers, it is believed that their students will benefit from the knowledge and skills gained.
Quality in education, according to Botha (2000), refers to factors, such as learners' achievement, teaching approaches and the nature of the school, that is the physical, cultural and social settings.
School resources, such as classrooms, furniture, physical resources, school facilities, learning resources, and the accessibility of a range of resources within the school are vital for improving learning and teaching practices in the classroom.
However, some authors are of the opinion that having sufficient resources on their own do not necessarily translate into good and effective teaching practices. Darling-Hammond (2012, p. 12) states, "to believe that mere provision of those necessities, without attention to how they will be used in school and in the classroom, will guarantee a high quality teaching process is unrealistic". As to Clarke (2002) quality can be achieved through efficiency and effectiveness. To Clarke, quality is the by-product of efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, any attempt that intends to bring quality in education, including in-service training, should be efficiently and effectively implemented and managed.
According to Dimmock (1990) quality in education entails one or more of the following elements: 1) Improving the standards of teaching and teachers' performance, 2) Improving the standard of learning and learners' performance, and 3) Providing a curriculum that is more relevant to client needs. Dimmock (1990) stipulated that teachers, learners, and the curriculum are the three important elements in which quality should be assured. Therefore, the current researchers focused on the role of In-Service in teacher education".
In line with this, special emphasis has been given to teachers continuing professional development in framework (2009, p. 4), "At the heart of this new approach was the promotion of more active learning, problem solving, and student-centered teaching methods". The ETP clearly indicates the critical need for upgrading and updating both pre-service and in-service teachers, as the policy recognized that teachers are the key to school improvement programs.
In service training has been implemented in different settings with varied intensions. Backer and Pence (1995) believe that in-service education and training should create a platform to foster changes in teachers' behavior in the classroom. Underlying this belief is the assumption that teachers need to change their existing beliefs, knowledge and practices. In-service training is one of the mechanisms that may help teachers to change their old beliefs, knowledge and practices.
Even though there are various reasons for in-service training, improving the standards of teaching and teachers' performance, which translate into standards of learning and learners' performance, is the dominant one. Bagwandeen and Louw (1993) believe one of the objectives of an in-service training is the consolidation and reaffirmation of knowledge. This means that it is necessary for teachers (even experienced ones) to refresh and improve their knowledge and skills. Teachers need to continually update their competencies, knowledge and skills with different mechanisms, and one of these mechanisms is INSET.
Another important objective of an in-service training is to introduce teachers with new teaching methods and innovations. The ultimate objective of such training is to improve learners' achievement.
Effective in-service training, therefore, is the one that improves classroom practices of teachers and academic achievement of students. Shulman (1987, p. 48) has suggested a framework for teacher development program that includes three major domains: 1) Content knowledge: mastery of specific content being taught.
2) Pedagogical Knowledge: understanding the theories and principles of teaching and learning, understanding the learner, and the knowledge and principles of classroom behavior and management.
3) Pedagogical content knowledge: the ability to blend technique and content, including how the given topics are related to one another, and how they are effectively organized and presented in classroom.
Therefore, in-service training should focus on the content (subject matter), the teaching methods, and classroom management skills of teachers.
In-service education and training may mean many things to different people. with professional development and identifies four settings in which professional development occurs: i) direct teaching (through, for example, conferences, courses, workshops, consultations); ii) learning in school (through, for example, peer-coaching, critical friends, quality review, appraisal, action research, portfolio assessment, working on tasks together); iii) learning out of school (through, for example, reform networks, school-university partnerships, professional development centers); iv) learning in the classroom (through, for example, student response).
When we look at the relationship of universities and schools, we understand that they are not separate entities. They have strong bondage as both are striving to impart knowledge and skills. Concerning their partnership, Day (1999, p. 152) says: "partnership between individual university tutors and school teachers are not new. Many teacher educators have their roots in schools and most teachers have been trained in universities". The kind of relationship between or among school teachers and university instructors are very decisive for the actualization of professional development in schools. If universities consider themselves as sources of knowledge and try to create a teacher-learner relationship between university and highs school professionals, the intended professional development of school teachers is unthinkable. Eraut (1994) in Day (1999) mentioned, the higher education should be "prepared to extend its role from that of creator and transmitter of knowledge to that of enhancing the knowledge creation capacities of individuals and professional communities".
School teachers and university instructors should have joint responsibilities for the whole process of knowledge creation, development and dissemination. This is the idea of collaborative development.
According to Day, "one option that head teachers, and teachers have is to build into their personal and institutional development plans the use of higher education personnel" (1999, p. 153). Using these personnel is advantageous as they are not connected to any authority structure and they are able to provide help complementary to the school-based supervisor or colleague. There are many types of support that are expected to be provided by higher institution personnel to school teachers. Some of these include: limited term development consultancies (for example, related to external inspection, team building, appraisal, school curriculum, teaching and assessment, etc.); external audit support (to audit an aspect of school policy, provide an evaluation of the effectiveness of the program, etc.); producing and disseminating research knowledge (about what is known nationally and internationally); generating educational knowledge (a colleague or colleagues from higher education alongside a teacher or head teacher in order to assist in problem solving or further development, etc.); building communities of intelligent practice (in which teachers from different schools or groups work together with education personnel, etc.) (Day, 1999).
These partnerships are like networks as they connect practitioners who share common interests and concerns about education (Miller, 2001). According to Miller, relationship between schools and universities has four main objectives: 1) To establish firm bases in the sphere of school and university.
2) To cross institutional boundaries in order to address the needs of these fields. 3) To insure inclusive decision making.

4) To create new values of educator development.
Accordingly, universities in Ethiopia are now playing major roles in the education and training of teachers, and many have done so for a long time.
In-service training may have some constraints because new skills and new knowledge learnt during INSET are sometimes not easy to be implemented in the classroom due to factors such as overcrowded classrooms, inadequate resources, time constraints, and lack of follow up after training. According to Warwick (1975), the serious problem of in-service training is the failure to prepare teachers adequately to meet the difficulties they will encounter in their classrooms on their return from the training.
Therefore, it is up to the trainers to avail the trainee with the necessary skills to coup up with these drawbacks. One of the ways in which we can tackle these problems is by installing a support system in the schools. This support system has to include follow up in the teachers' classroom practices and provide professional support when and where necessary. This means that there need be a systematic mentoring and supervision in schools.
There are still other factors which will hamper the effectiveness of in-service training. These include: teachers work load, inadequate salaries, the low status of teachers in Ethiopian society, and teachers resigning to take other well paid and less stressful jobs. Due to these problems, many teachers are reluctant to participate in in-service trainings.

Objective
The main objective of this study is to uncover the existing relationships between universities and high schools and the extent this relationship help in alleviating the problems of poor quality education in general and the English language teachers skills and professional development in particular. It is followed by the following three specific objectives: 1) To assess the current practices of in-service education and training programs for English Language Teachers in Tabor cluster.
2) To find out the core factors that motivate English language teachers to take part in in-service education and training programs.
3) To find platforms for linking secondary schools with universities.

Research Design
Classroom based educational research employs qualitative and quantitative designs, or a combination of both. The difference between the two, as Best and Kahn (1993)  factors in terms of amount, intensity or frequency. In contrast, qualitative research attempts to achieve a deeper, holistic understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
Therefore, this study is designed to investigate the nature and quality of in-service training in improving English language teaching in Tabor cluster, Hawassa city of the SNNPR. This investigation follows cross-sectional and descriptive research design, and pragmatically uses a mixed methods research in order to gain the benefits of qualitative and quantitative research methods and to avoid their disadvantages when used in isolation.

Sample and Sampling Technique
The total population of this study comprised of all English Language teachers of the cluster schools.
But only 40 teachers were selected as participants in the training and the total population who participated in the training were included. However, only four teachers and two school administrators were selected for key informant interview because of their knowledge of university-school relations as they had long professional teaching experience in the sample study area.

Data Gathering Instruments
Questionnaire and interview guide were used as data gathering instruments of the study. Questionnaire is a self report instrument useful for economically and speedily obtaining data from a large number of respondents (Brown, 2001 Key informant interviewing is one of the most powerful tools used in attempting to understand people's points of view, beliefs and attitudes. Because of its interactive nature, interview has many advantages over other types of data collection strategies (Best & Kahn, 1993). One-to-one structured key informant interviewing was chosen as the methods of qualitative data collection.

Data Analysis
The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The Statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS-20) was run. The qualitative data, on the other hand, was analyzed using open code software 3.6. Themes were categorized and re-organized at different levels of code, and then described textually. experienced (8 years and above). Based on these criteria, there were no beginner teachers; mid-level teachers were only 5 (12.5%), and the majority 35 (87.5%) were experienced teachers. The trainees were from four secondary and preparatory schools; namely: Alamura (8 teachers which account for 20%), Gemeto (3 teachers which is 7.5%), Tabor (22 teachers which accounts for 55%), and Tula (7 teachers which is about 17.5%). The trainees were teaching either grade 9-10 (28 teachers which is 70%) or preparatory (grades 11-12; 12 teachers which is 30%). Most of the trainees were bilinguals or polyglots speaking two or more Ethiopian languages. English is a foreign language to all of them. The composition of their linguistic background is shown in Table 1 below:  of them spoke only Amharic. As the training site was in Sidama (Hawassa) the next higher number (10 which, is 25%) of the trainees spoke Sidama language and Amharic. The rest 15 trainees spoke Amharic and Oromo (12.5%), Amharic Kambata (5%), Amharic Kiswahili (5%), Amharic Wolayata (5%), Amharic, Kambata and Hadiyya (5%) and Amharic, Sidama and Oromo (5%). This has ramification in teaching and learning English. To begin with the trainees themselves will have mother tongue interference at different levels and areas of language. Second, they will be advantageous in teaching students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds as their own experience can help them to understand their students.

Assessment on INSET
The participants were asked if they had INSET familiarity by different agents including the school, city education administrators, teachers and other colleague helps. Their responses are shown in Table 2 below:  Two participants (5%) did not respond to this question hence computed as a missing value. Table   3 below:  More than half (55%) of the respondents reported that they need trainings in contents, methodology and classroom management. Many (32.5%) specifically indicated that they need training on teaching methodology. A few (5%) gave priority for trainings on contents, and very few (2.5%) expressed that classroom management training is their need.

The question on when and by whom the needs of teachers for INSET was identified is showed in
To find out what factors the teachers most motivate them to participate in INSET, the trainees were asked to choose among three possible motivating variables. Their responses are provided in Table 5 below: Of the three variables provided, the most motivating factor (42.5%) for INSET is found to be career development. The next higher motivating factor is catering for needs of teachers (32.5%) and the next (25%) of the trainees attributed the factor for INSET for it brings them incentives.
The trainees were asked who should supervise INSET in their schools. Four potential supervisors were given: principals and department heads in their school, subject specialists from regional education bureau, university based English teachers and other supervisors. Their responses are shown in Table 6 below:  The trainees were asked what factors would help them to change traditional teacher dominated ways of teaching and to practice student centered teaching approach. The main factors attributed are given in Table 7 below: The other survey question aims to find out what does the professional links between schools and university around Hawassa looks like. The participants' responses to this question are provided in Table   9 below: very strong. Nobody reported that there is a strong relationship among them. Four (10%) was a missing value.

Introduction
The researchers conducted the interviews on different days for the various participants. The participants were all interviewed at their respective schools at convenient places allocated by the school principals.
The interviews were conducted in English and all the participants responded in English. The researchers recorded the responses in writing. An interview schedule was used to ask interviewees similar open ended-questions. The questions were asked in the same sequence in order to reduce bias as much as possible. In situations where respondents did not understand or hear the questions, the questions were repeated or rephrased.
Qualitative data analysis primarily involves the process of organizing data into categories and identifying patterns among categories. Accordingly, the researchers transcribed the responses of the interviewees verbatim. The interim analysis was done first by grouping all the responses to a particular question. The responses were then coded using open code and grouped into themes. The interview data were then organized in order to get the overview of what they have revealed.

Analysis
The main categories of the analysis were identified as the main themes on which respondents' view were sought. They constitute the building blocks of the interview schedule. The subcategories were identified from the responses of the interviewees. The number of sub categories for each category therefore depends on different views of the interviewees.  (0) From the trainings given by city administration (2) Familiarity via colleagues help (1) No school based INEST. So, no familiarity (3) Identifying in-service needs of teachers Individual teacher (0) No formal procedures followed (3) Needs are addressed during INSET session (1) Needs are identified by school administrators (2) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt Language teaching methodology (6) Classroom management skills (6) Motivation to attend in-service training programs Career development (6) Catering for the needs of teachers (4) Monitoring and supervision of teachers after in-Providing some sort of incentives to teachers (5) service training Principals and department heads (5) Subject specialists from education bureau (0) University based English teachers (0) Other supervisors (2) Factors that contribute for changing their "old ways" of teaching Provision of supportive teaching materials (6) Class room visit and coaching (4) Improving classroom setting (4) Continuous monitoring and supervision (3) Suggestion for INSET trainer Professors from universities in Ethiopia (5) Native English speakers with TEFL trainings (5) English language teachers with a higher qualification (3) Other local teachers (0) School-university link Very weak (5) Weak (1) a) Qualification The question on qualification was to find out whether teachers have the relevant qualifications to teach English language in the high schools. The qualitative result also confirmed teachers' training needs were identified during the training, not before the training. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that there was no formal procedure to identify teachers need before the training. Therefore, it is possible to say there are no formal processes of identifying the needs of English language teachers among schools of the Tabor cluster before the commencement of in-service training.

d) INSET Focus Area
The question "What are the main focuses of practicing English language teachers' in-service training?" was asked in order to establish the modus operandi of English language teachers' in-service training programs.
Almost all participants mentioned that English language teachers' in-service training should focus on the three areas: content, method and classroom management. Majority of the participants indicated that the most important part of an INSET session is group discussion where each one is given the opportunity to express his/her views freely. In such situations, participants learn a lot from one another.
Teachers do benefit from such discussions because they share their experiences on how to deal on different classroom issues. The respondents view that they need input nearly equally on all three areas well fits into (Shulman, 1987)  In-service training should create a platform to foster change in teacher behavior in the classroom.
Teachers were then asked how they may be motivated to change their "old ways" of teaching after attending in-service training programs.
As can be seen from based English teachers or native speakers with appropriate training.
The result of the quantitative data completely matched with the qualitative. The qualitative result indicated that majority of the respondents preferred either university professors or native English language speakers with TEFL training as in-service trainers.
i) School University Relation Table 10 shows that almost all participants mentioned the school university link as very weak. Only one respondent said it is weak. This reveals that there is no school-university link in the research area.
When we look at the result of the quantitative data majority (i.e., 60%) of the respondents affirmed that the school university link is weak and very weak. As community service is one of the missions of universities in Ethiopia, both the concerned schools and the university in the area need to have a strong relationship to promote professionalism and for the betterment of the overall improvement in teaching-learning process. Both will benefit from their relationships in many ways. School teachers, for instance, may get professional support from university-based teachers in many ways including in transference of new innovations in the field, coaching support, developmental supervision, etc.

Conclusion
The research from quantitative data results showed that teachers get familiarity to INSET best from school teachers, but qualitative data showed they have no much familiarity with INSET. And if they had, it was through school administration. Teachers' needs are best identified during INSET sessions, but qualitative data result indicates that there are no formal procedures for need identification. The trainees need for further INSET include contents, methodology and classroom management; this has been well confirmed in both quantitative and qualitative data results. It is found that carrier development is the most motivating factor for taking part in INSET. Supply of teaching materials is found to be most helpful for the teachers to improve their teaching career. It is found that teachers from secondary and preparatory schools prefer principals and department heads to monitor and supervise INSET, but they prefer professors from universities to provide the trainings. It is found that the relationship among schools and universities is to a larger extent weak.

Recommendations
Based on the conclusions, we draw the following recommendations: 1) Trainers should make efforts to identify the trainees' needs together with the teachers during and after training sessions.
2) The forthcoming INSET trainings should include content, methodology and classroom management.
Such trainings have to be expanded to other schools for which the trainings were not given.
3) As career developments and incentives are the most motivating factors for participations in INSET trainings, the teachers who take part should be rewarded in promotion, financial or other material support since their participation brings change in quality of education in the schools.

4) INSET should be offered by qualified and experienced teachers from universities and the process
and output should be supervised by school principals and department heads.
5) The existing weak relationships between professors from universities and English teachers from schools should be improved for quality education is summative, and the quality education offered at one educational level contributes for the other.