Title: “Exploring the Teaching and Testing of Learners’ German Language Communicative Abilities
(GLCA) in Secondary Schools in Uganda”
Samuel Sekiziyivu
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the teaching and testing of learners’ German language communicative
abilities (GLCA) This was effected by examining the teaching strategies while preparing
students’ communicative abilities, establishing the suitability of available resources for
developing learners’ communicative competence in German, establishing how teachers use the
available resources to prepare learners to achieve communicative competence in German,
establishing the relevance of existing tests to testing learners’ communicative abilities, and by
establishing the relationship between learners’ prior performance in UCE and their performance
in GLCA. The study employed a descriptive case study design in order to fully investigate the
teaching of German and the testing of GLCA. Then a correlational research design was
employed in order to investigate the relationship between learners’ performance on
communicative language tests and their prior performance on the existing standard examinations.
The tools used were observation, interviews, focus group discussions and a test of German
language communicative ability. Findings from questionnaires, interviews, and classroom
observations indicate that there is very limited availability and use of authentic materials and that
teaching and testing of German in Ugandan secondary schools is not based on the principles of
CLT. However, students’ performance in the UCE was found to be significantly related to
performance in the GLCA test. In conclusion, the study revealed that the existing system of
teaching and testing German in Ugandan secondary schools could not promote learners’
communicative language abilities. It was recommended that teachers of German need to be
provided with a variety of resources that can be used to enhance teaching and testing language in
real life-like contexts, and that teacher education programs put an emphasis on training teachers
to teach and to test language for real life communication purposes.