Examining Relationships among Students Grade Level, Attitude and Use of First Language in English Classroom

The main purpose of this study was to examine whether there is significant relationships among the students' grade level, attitude and usage of first language in English classroom. In this study the attitude of the four grade level (grade 9-12) students toward first language use in EFL classroom was also investigated. The study was Co-relational research which involved quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. The participants of the study were grade nine, ten, eleven and twelve students of Suhul Michael Secondary School. The sampling size was 250 students. These samples were selected using stratified sampling method. To reach the study on the intended stage, different data gathering and analysis tools were used. To gather data from the intended group questionnaire, observation and interview were used. The quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16.0. The primarily statistical analysis utilized were descriptive statistics, one way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and percentage. The result of the study indicated that grade nine, ten and eleven students have positive attitude toward the implementation of Tigrigna language in English session. But grade twelve students have negative attitude toward Tigrigna language use. The findings also showed that there is significant negative relationship between the students' grade level and attitude toward Tigrigna language use in English lesson. But there is medium positive relationship between the students' attitude and perceived use of Tigrigna language in English class. The output of the study also revealed that grade nine and ten students use Tigrigna language much frequently in English class whereas grade eleven and twelve students rarely use it in English session. The results of the study also exploit that certain amount of Tigrigna language has been used in English class.3.73% of Tigrigna against 96.27% of English language has been used in English class. To utter this amount of Tigrigna and English language words 3.49 and 96.51 percent of time was devoted respectively. From the total amount of Tigrigna language words high percentage (2.97%) of Tigrigna language words was incorporated in grade nine English classes.