EFL Teachers’ Awareness and Accommodations of Learners’ Different Learning Styles in ELT Context: Two Colleges of Teachers’ Education in Oromia, Ethiopia.

Abstract

This study was conducted in an attempt to investigate EFL teachers’ awareness of their students’ different learning styles and their practice to accommodate them in teaching the English language in Dembi Dollo and Mettu Colleges of Teachers’ Education (henceforth, CTEs), Oromia, Ethiopia. To achieve the intended objective, a descriptive survey design was employed, and this design was selected since the prime intention of the study was to describe the existing realities concerning the EFL teachers’ practices of accommodating learning styles. EFL teachers and Year III EFL students of the English language department; altogether, 60 participants were taken using a comprehensive sampling technique. Besides, classroom observations were conducted to see the teachers’ actual practices while teaching the English language. This method was used to triangulate the different kinds of data obtained from the two parties. Finally, the findings of the study revealed that the EFL teachers’ practices of accommodating their learners’ different learning styles in the English language teaching at the CTEs were found to be poor. In other words, EFL teachers of the aforementioned CTE are not addressing their learners’ learning styles while teaching the English language courses. And it could be inferred that this failure of accommodation emanated from teachers’ lack of cognizance of students’ learning styles.