Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.4, No.7, 2014 49 Mother Tongue Based (MTB) Classroom Instruction: The Attitudes and Perceptions of School Community in Sidama Zone, Ethiopia Mebratu Mulatu Bachore School of Language Studies and Communication College of Social Science and Humanities Hawassa University Hawassa Ethiopia, P.O.box: 05, Hwassa, Ethiopia E-mail: mebratumulatu@yahoo.com/ mebratumulatu@gmail.com Abstract The main objective of the study is to assess the attitudes and perceptions of school community towards mother tongue based classroom instruction. The study was conducted in Sidama zone, particularly in three Woredas which one school was drawn from each. The approach employed to carry out the study was mixed one: quantitative and qualitative approach. The tools which were used to collect data are questionnaires and interview. The questionnaire was administered to the teachers and the students, and the interview was to the school parents in the target area. There were 70 students, 6 parents and 11 teachers who were taken by using cluster and random sampling. The results of the study showed that most parents and almost half of the sample students have negative attitude and perception towards using mother tongue as a medium of instruction. But, the teachers’ attitude and perception can be rated as good. Moreover, the study revealed that there are challenges like shortages of reference materials and text books to be used in Sidama language; students might have problems in their future since the language is being used in their local environment only, and the students are experiencing serious writing problems in the texts they produce in the Sidama language. Key words: Mother-tongue, Attitude, Perception, Classroom instruction 1. Introduction 1.1 Background of the Study Most African countries have embarked on new education policies and curriculum changes after UNESCO’s 1990 World Conference on “Education For All”. Yet, education success for the majority of children remains elusive. The measure was taken to provide quality education for citizens. Although there are many factors involved in delivering quality basic education, language is clearly the key to communication and understanding in the classroom. Many developing countries are characterized by individual as well as societal multilingualism, yet continue to allow a single foreign language to dominate the education sector. Instruction through a language that learners do not speak has been called “submersion” (Skutnabb- Kangas 2000) because it is analogous to holding learners under water without teaching them how to swim. Compounded by chronic difficulties such as low levels of teacher education, poorly designed, inappropriate curricula and lack of adequate school facilities, submersion makes both learning and teaching extremely difficult, particularly when the language of instruction is also foreign to the teacher. Mother tongue-based bilingual programs use the learner’s first language, known as the L1, to teach beginning reading and writing skills along with academic content. The second or foreign language, known as the L2, should be taught systematically so that learners can gradually transfer skills from the familiar language to the unfamiliar one. Bilingual models and practices vary as do their results, but what they have in common is their use of the mother tongue at least in the early years so that students can acquire and develop literacy skills in addition to understanding and participating in the classroom. Though mother tongue based education has such roles, discussions of the role of the MT (mother tongues) are often controversial and polarized, full of misunderstandings and an unhealthy amount of guilt. The banning and the use of the MT have come and gone throughout history. However, Cook points out that ‘most teaching methods since the 1880s have adopted the direct method avoidance of the L1’ (2001: 2) and ‘recent methods do not so much forbid the L1 as ignore its existence altogether. According to Hovens (2003) and Walter and Dekker (2011), for a successful mother tongue based classroom instruction, the attitude of the school community towards it is very significant. However, the analytic report of EGRA, released by the USAID (2010) reveals that the mother tong based classroom instruction in the current study area was not successful as it is compared with other areas in the nation. The result shows how the problem was very serious. In the report, the part which is specified by SNNP refers the sample areas taken from Sidama zone which the area of the current study. The Percentage of Children scoring zero on reading comprehension is 72.8% and 87.5% of Grade 3 children read less than 30 words per minute. In addition, the report revealed that 69.2% of the children could not read one word in Grade 2.