Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine grade nine students' and teachers' perception and practice of
learner autonomy in learning speaking skills at three catholic secondary schools in Addis Ababa. A
descriptive survey design was employed to direct the overall study. Mixed approaches (quantitative and
qualitative) data collection methods were applied to collect data for the study. Three Catholic schools in
Addis Ababa were selected for this research by applying convenience sampling. The study also involved
one hundred and seventy four students randomly selected from the schools in focus. Besides, four
teachers who were selected by comprehensive sampling were taken part for interview and classroom
observation. Data collected from the questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews were analyzed
in percentiles, frequencies, mean scores, one sample t-test and qualitative description. The findings of the
study showed that cognitive and social and/or communicative strategies were employed adequately by
both students and teachers whereas meta-cognitive strategies were employed insufficiently. However,
teachers showed great efforts to promote evaluation strategies efficiently in their speaking skills classes.
Second, the, students practiced the outside classroom activities adequately, and teachers promoted
learners to do activities and utilize resources which are found outside the classroom to develop their
speaking skills. Third, both students and teachers considered the teacher more responsible regarding
decision making in the learning process of speaking skills. Fourth, while the students evaluated their
ability positively, teachers considered their students incompetent to learn speaking skills by themselves.
In light of these findings, it is recommended that teachers have to promote a greater degree of autonomy
of speaking skills by encouraging learners to reflect upon classroom learning through training students
different strategies such as using diaries to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning, identify problems
and solve it by discussing with friends and teachers. Besides, result of this study will initiate researchers
to make empirical researches on ways of employing learner training in order to develop learner
autonomy of speaking skills in language education ultimately.
