EFFECTIVE USE OF TEACHING METHODS AS A CORRELATES OF STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN EKITI STATE

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out on the effective use of teaching methods as a correlates of students performance in English Language in secondary schools in Ekiti State. The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study. The population size comprise of English teachers in some selected senior secondary schools in Ekiti State. In determining the sample size, the researcher purposefully selected 39 respondents and 35 were validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables, and mean score tables. While the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistical tool. The result of the findings reveals that the teaching methods necessary for effective teaching of English Language in secondary school include; the direct method, the grammar translation method, the audio lingual method, the structural approach, suggestopedia, total physical response, communicative language teaching (CLT), and the silent way method of teaching. The study also revealed that the extent at teachers utilizes various methods in the teaching of English Language in secondary schools is low. Furthermore, teachers’ usage of various teaching method significantly influences students academic performance in English Language. Therefore, it is recommended that government should train more teachers in order to specialize on handling different teaching methods. And the educational institutions must organise various training programmes and workshops for their staff members for enabling them to integrate technology into classroom instruction which can result in increased retention and comprehension of presented course material resulting in higher performance of participatory learning.

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Education is a beacon that illuminates the path that humanity should take in order to reach its full potential. In addition to making students how to read and write, the goal of education is to instill in them the ability to think critically, acquire new knowledge, and support themselves. There is always room for improvement when there is a desire to make adjustments. The native language of the people who live in England is English. It may be traced back to the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who were some of the first inhabitants of Britain. Within the Indo-European language family, it belongs to the Germanic branch known as Old High German. At the beginning, the use of English was restricted to the territory of Great Britain alone. Later on, it became more widespread among the higher classes of London, Oxford, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Cambridge as well as the rest of England and England's other major cities throughout the British Empire as a prominent core language among all other European languages. It progressed much farther and spread to individuals in other parts of the globe. It extended to Asia, Germany, Africa, and other continents where it was used either as a native language or as a language of the languages who lived there. In Nigeria, in addition to its language as an official language and a second language, English also functions as a lingua franca for speakers of other languages. This translates to the fact that it is the language of the unit, communication, economy, national pride, low, press, trade, and education. Because it is the language that students are taught in, proficiency in it is a necessary condition for promotion and progress in a job in the nation. Because it is a core topic that has a significant impact on all of the other courses in school, it has a significant impact on the life and development of a student. The four fundamental linguistic abilities—listening, reading, speaking, and writing—will be covered in depth throughout the course's most important components, which are described here. A proactive effort to enhancing existing teaching tactics and methods or incorporating new ones into a classroom setting is referred to as a teaching method of teaching. They are very helpful resources to have in a classroom that focuses on the English language. It raises the bar or increases the quality of teaching because it gives students the opportunity to engage with words, pictures, and concepts in ways that help them develop their skills in reading, listening, speaking, watching, thinking, writing, and making use of media and technology. One of the key goals of using teaching method in the context of the English language teaching is to inspire more participation from the students in the process of learning. Students are able to get more practical experience and remember more information from a lesson when they engage with their teachers and other classmates. It is challenging for one to communicate in the second language and to learn it. According to Wilkins (2014), the effort of a person learning a second language to create utterances in the language is impacted not just by the sound of the individual's first language, but also by the individual's structures. To be successful in learning a second language, one must first acquire certain skills and components. When it comes to learning a language, one of the skills and components that is among the most essential is mastering the English language. Without it, communication just isn't feasible. According to Harmer (2011), "if language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is English language that supplies the vital organs and the flesh" of the linguistic system. Wilkins (2014) said that very little can be communicated without proper grammar. However, without the English language, it is impossible to transmit anything. (Lewis, 2010). In either spoken or written form, the English language is a highly significant medium for expressing our ideas and feelings. This is true whether we are speaking or writing. In point of fact, there would be no literature or language if not for the English language. According to John (2010), the words themselves are the "bricks" that have been used to construct the poetry and literature of the globe. Words are the primary medium via which we construct our ideas and communicate those ideas to other people. We are able to accomplish our own objective via the use of language. This demonstrates that words are potent instruments. Rudyard Kipling, a famous imperialist poet, once said that words are more potent than any medication that humanity has yet devised. Those who have a strong command of the English language are proficient in both speaking and writing the language. As a result, the most important aspect of learning a second language is the study of the English language. Because so many people speak English as a second or even a foreign language, it is essential to acquire the language in a methodical manner. In point of fact, meaningful communication in a second or even a foreign language is impossible to do without a command of the English language. McCarthy (2017) asserts that "no matter how well the student learns grammar and no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way." This statement is based on the author's contention that communication in an L2 cannot take place in any meaningful way. It is necessary to have a command of the English language in order to convey meaning and make use of both the receptive (listening and reading) and the productive skills (speaking and writing). Due to the fact that it paves the road for communication, it ought to be regarded as an integral component of the process of learning a foreign language. Teachers are one of the primary sources that may assist their students in enhancing and progressing in their use of the English language. They use a large number of different approaches to teaching the English language in order to accomplish this goal. Method may represent a variety of things to various individuals, but when referring to teaching practices, it is most often understood to refer to a predetermined sequence of steps that must be carried out while instructing teachers. It might imply avoiding specific risks that are inherently present in a certain method. The primary distinction between the many definitions of teaching techniques that you have seen resides in the manner in which individual teachers choose, grade, present, repeat, and assess the educational contents that are being taught to their students. In other words, the similarities between the various methods outweigh the differences between them. In essence, all methods for teaching a language involve a specific selection of materials, a progression of those materials, presentation of the materials, and evaluation of what has been presented to determine whether or not the goals have been achieved. Because it is impossible to teach every facet of the language at the same time, the instructor has to choose some topics from among those available to cover within a given class. When it comes to planning a lesson, you have a wide variety of instructional approaches from which to choose. It's possible that some approaches are useful for teaching one facet of language but not others, depending on the context. Therefore, language teachers are required to examine the approaches they intend to utilize before to actually making such methods into practice. Larsen and Freeman developed a method for evaluating the efficacy of various methods, which they named after themselves (2010). During the process, the instructor figures out his own objectives as well as those of his students, the kind of activities during the lesson, and the interaction between the instructor and the students. The sentiments of the students, the language and language skills that are stressed, and the function that mother tongue plays are some of the other aspects of the approaches that the instructor is tasked with determining in order to evaluate whether or not they are successful. The last thing that teachers decide is how to deal with mistakes made by students and the most effective technique to assess the results of teaching and learning. The English teachers are tasked with deciding which method should be used, which is a responsibility that lies before them. The core of the concepts and procedure of assessing the success of the method are taught in order to provide the instructor with the ability to determine which method or combination of ways to utilize for their lesson plans. It is the exclusive duty of the educator to put these applications into teaching in their classrooms; nevertheless, the most essential thing is for the educator to have knowledge about these strategies. On the other hand, students shouldn't lose sight of the primary reason they're learning English in Nigeria in the first place. As a result, the purpose of this research is to investigate the efficacy of various instructional strategies in terms of their relationship to the academic success of secondary school students teaching the English language.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In recent years, there has been a worrying increase in the number of students who do not pass the English language portion of the external exams that are administered by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) (Queeneth, 2014). The ongoing trend has given those with a stake in the education industry cause for grave worry. According to Türel and Muhammet (2015), despite the fact that Nigeria is a nation that is endowed with an abundance of both people and material resources, there is no discernible improvement in the academic performance of the country's students. However, a large number of individuals, including officials from the Ministry of Education, were pointing accusing fingers at a large number of causes, one of which was the inefficient use of techniques of instruction. The researcher is interested in determining the extent to which various teaching methods are used effectively when teaching English Language in secondary schools. Although there are many different teaching methods that are utilized by teachers, the researcher is specifically interested in the effectiveness of those teaching methods.