Harla Journal of Social and Behavioral Studies

Teacher’s continuous professional development Programs in Ethiopia:

2023-07-13T05:57:15-08:00

Quality teachers, for quality education, are the single greatest determinant of student achievement. It is now globally recognized that professional development plays an important role in changing teachers’ teaching methods and beliefs, and have a positive impact on students’ learning. The purpose of this study was to reflect on the practice of the new teachers’ Continuous Professional Development (CPD) framework introduced in 2009 through a critical analysis of recent studies. It elucidates how actors, in the education sector, have been occupied with the rhetoric of system reforms, and yet continues to signal contradictory messages in their discourse and practices. The article further pointed out that, eight years after the “framework for continuous professional development for primary and secondary teacher leaders, and supervisors” was declared, the same old problems have continued bottlenecking the education system. It attempts to show implications for future.

Assessing Land Degradation Neutrality Status Using Geospatial Techniques in North Wello Zone, Northern Ethiopia

2023-07-13T06:06:21-08:00

Land degradation is increasingly recognized as a serious, nationwide environmental concern in Ethiopia. The key concern is the interlinked relations between land degradation, climate change and agriculture, exacerbating one another via negative and positive feedback loops. The purpose of this study was to analyze land productivity dynamics trends and land degradation conditions in the North Wello Zone using three United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) indicators, with land cover change, land productivity dynamics and soil organic carbon stock. Land use land cover data was provided by earthmap.org platform for the time of 1995 to 2018. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MOD13Q1) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data were used from the year 2000 to 2020 to analyze the net primary productivity. For soil organic carbon, we used the global soil organic carbon map for the year 2019. The global soil carbon map was developed as 1 km soil grids, covering a depth of 0-30 cm. The land degradation neutrality (LDN) status of the study area was estimated by integration of results of the three indicators based on a "one out, all out" approach. Over the study periods of 1995 to 2018, significant land use land cover change was observed. Forest land during the last 23 years increased by 70.71 square kilometers. The settlement areas also increased by 4.47 square kilometers in the same period. However, the croplands, grasslands and wetlands shows negative change in 1995 to 2018. The stock of soil organic carbon in North Wello Zone shows spatial variations. Soil organic carbon is highly concentrated in midland areas where forest cover is high. However, the NDVI value calculated for the year 2000 to 2020 did not show significant difference but the trend line shows positive. Concurrently, the land productivity dynamics for the year 2000 to 2020 shows only half of the total study area is stable and less stressed land productivity status. This research indicated alarming signs of declining land capital North Wello Zone. Negative changes occurred one of the three indicators of which shows a tendency for land degradation. Therefore, we believe that balancing measures to achieve land degradation neutrality should be implemented as quickly as possible.

Using Flipped Classroom to Develop Learners’ Listening Proficiency:

2023-07-13T08:35:57-08:00

The purpose of this study was to determine whether implementing FC in to English language listening classroom is possible, increase learners’ motivation, and help learners to enhance their listening proficiency. The study was conducted with 18 second year EFL students of Dire Dawa University. A pre-post single group quasi- experimental design was used to see learners progress in listening proficiency. To collect the data about learners’ motivation and attitude towards the FC, observation, questionnaire (both close-ended and open-ended) were employed. So mixed research approach was used to collect and analyze the overall data. Technology-mediated course material was prepared by the researcher and implemented for 13 weeks. The result showed that learners’ listening proficiency is improved as the mean difference between pre-test and post-test is 21.8 and The independent sample t-test showed significant value (Sig. (2-tailed) 0.001.) which is lower than 0.05 which is interpreted as FC has significant effect on learners’ listening proficiency. In addition, the result of class observation and questionnaire indicates that learners have positive attitude towards the FC, and they perceived that FC provided them practical listening materials, interesting activities, and learning autonomy which made them feel motivated. This study recommends that English language teachers may implement FC in teaching listening skills considering its effectiveness in developing listening proficiency.

Epistemic injustice and the need for Indigenizing Higher Education:

2023-07-13T08:41:19-08:00

The objective of this paper is to reflect critically on the prevailed epistemic injustice and the importance of indigenization among African higher education. Epistemic injustice is an injustice embedded in knowledge. Exclusion and silencing; methodical distortion or caricature of one's meanings or contributions; and belittling of one's status are some of its manifestations. Universities are supposed to be institutions where knowledge is produced and disseminated. With remaining epistemologically subservient to the Western hegemony, African universities however, participated in perpetuating the existing epistemic injustice. Their history of establishment, as an institute that produces the necessary manpower for the smooth functioning of the colonial enterprise, have still kept defining their essence in another form, i.e., alienation. For their intrinsically alienated underpinning, the type of university that many African countries inherited and developed anew have only used them for being a periphery at the global stage of knowledge generation and extending the deep rooted epistemic injustice. Overcoming such a challenge, this piece, with the help of analyzing intensive literature and deployment of a discursive reasoning approach, invokes on the need for indigenizing curriculum and attaining decolonization. Indigenizing involves renovating curriculum and teaching practices to embrace indigenous knowledge. The incorporation of indigenous knowledge facilitates epistemological decolonization of the continent via its institutions of higher learning. To this effect, Philosophy, and perhaps African philosophy specifically, despite an endless debate of proving its existence, have assumed an indispensable role in empowering Africans through articulating a philosophical locus taking in to account the context and cultural idiosyncrasies of the African.

Phenomenological analysis of social and individual identity characterization in ‘Mereq’ during the revolution period (It Has Amharic Title)

2023-07-13T10:58:39-08:00

The purpose of this study is to scrutinize the life experience of the characters in Adam Reta's long novel ‘Mereq’ and show the representation of the social and individual identities during the revolution period in terms of social ethics and psychological origins. The study is qualitative and collects the data by document inspection method and purposive sampling method, and uses interdisciplinary analysis as a strategy. To achieve objectives, the research tries to analyze the essay by using the analytical, semantic, phenomenological method of psychoanalysis, New Historicism, and Sociology. This is by considering the relative freedom it creates and the complexity of the science that is the focus of the study. The research shows that the characters are morally out of their society; this means that the society in question is not healthy. In the analysis based on Lacan's view of psychoanalysis, the study showed that at the level of individual psychology, the characters find it difficult to express their thoughts, feelings, and desires, and what they can express was that they are suppressed from expressing freely or boldly. This has been interpreted as an indication of a heightened psychology at the individual personality level. The study also revealed that the revolution period in which the novel was born was like a suppressed society and a protested individual. Therefore, the study presents a conclusive argument that the society and individual identity of the revolution period is chaotic. Furthermore, the study suggests that the call for interdisciplinary literary research is not only for literature, but also for other fields of study. The present study is to indicate that the role that language and literature research can play in the overall development of our country. (It has an Amharic Abstract)