Exploring the practices of Extensive Reading in South Omo Secondary Schools. Selected Secondary Schools in focus

The main objective of this research is to explore the practice of extensive reading in six secondary schools in the South Omo zone. To achieve the objective of the research, a mixed research design was used. In line with this, questionnaires, interviews and observation were the main data collection tools through which English language teachers, librarians and students participated. Likewise, the analysis of the collected data was made through simple descriptive statistics (i.e., mean, Standard deviation and frequency). The finding of the study shows that students mainly were dependent on the school library. It was also found that students read for academic gain than for their pleasure time. This is found to be out of the extensive reading principles. It was also found that English teachers were using and promoting the extensive reading approach in their language classes. It is recommended that schools and public libraries should prepare reading materials that are at the level of the student’s reading competencies. Furthermore, English language teachers should plan a free reading program along with their school curriculum which is designed and appropriate for extensive reading. Keywords: Extensive Reading, reading fluency, Challenges, teacher’s role,