The Place of Folklore in Primary Curriculum of Language Education and Its Advantages as a Vehicle of Cultural Values

Abstract

The main purpose of this study wasto assess the place of folklore in curriculum and its merits as a vehicle ofcultural values transmitted to primary children via the four language skills in the curriculum of language education. Different books written by the authorities of the field, Journals, website resources, unpublished articles and the 5thgrade student textbookof Oromo languagewere the sources of information in the study.Qualitative method was employed to analyze and interpret the relevant data.The study revealed that folkloreis one of the vital vehicles of cultural values, whichhave a primary place inlanguage curriculum and a great advantage to mold the behavior of primary children.It has been also imperativeto authenticate how the selected folklore genres are compatible with the experience of primary children and enhance the cultural values, skills, knowledge and attitude ofthe learners prior to integratingthem with the language sills. Furthermore, theimportance ofselectinga variety of folklore genres carefully from all classification of folk life studies and integrate them with four language skills has been evident by the exponents of the field.Moreover, the folkloric contents thatareselected and integrated with the four language skills have to be well balanced in their distribution at grade level continued, sequenced and integrated vertically and horizontally in the curriculum materials of the cycle.At the end of this study, theimportance of establishingEthiopian Folklore society (EFS)has been suggested.