ASSESSMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: The teaching and study of the English language is extremely vital in today's culture. This is due to the different functions it plays in the country's geopolitical framework. English is widely used in Nigeria for communication, education, economic, and social purposes. English Language is not only taught as a topic in schools, but it is also the basic subject through which all other subjects are taught. Despite this, the grammatical part of English is given less emphasis in primary education. Today, Magut (2018) opined that the nature of teaching and learning English grammatical structure in primary school has piqued the interest of teachers, researchers, and policymakers since it considerably improves the acquisition of the four language abilities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing).

Given the foregoing, grammatical structure, which includes English tenses, parts of speech, punctuation, concord, clauses, and phrases, is critical to the teaching, learning, and mastering of the English language among primary school students. As a result, Fraenkel and Wallen (2018) assert that it must not only be taught to students, but also taken seriously at the primary school level, because elementary education provides a stronger basis for the future.

However, when it comes to what is relevant in certain chosen elementary schools in Kaduna North Local Government Area of Kaduna State, the overall practise of both instructors and students towards the teaching and learning of English grammatical structure is not encouraging. The emphasis has shifted from learning the grammar of the language to teaching writing and reading comprehension, the use of previous common entrance examination question papers, teaching spellings, dictation, and so on, rather than adequate instruction/explanation on aspects of English grammatical structures, which the students desperately need.

According Allwright (2020) lack of trained/qualified teachers, insufficient materials (textbooks and teaching aids), poor classroom facilities, ambiguity in some English syllabi, inadequate evaluation of teacher's work by the supervisory authority, and the teacher's inability to properly evaluate pupils' work on grammar are all factors that contribute to students' poor performance in not only grammatical structure but other aspects of English language at large. As a result, the primary school English language teaching and learning should aim to guarantee that students have a strong understanding and command of grammatical structures, as well as the capacity to employ these effectively for greater English language progress. This is what has inspired the necessity for this study.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem to be investigated in “An evaluative study of the teaching and learning of English grammatical structures in some primary schools. The research work is aimed at identifying the causes of pupils’ poor performance in using English structural items correctly. As a result of this, and other problems, this research will specifically investigate the following:

i) How pupils in the primary schools are motivated to learn and use English grammatical structures.

ii) The methods and techniques employed by teachers in the teaching of English structural items in the primary school and the effectiveness of these methods and techniques.

iii) The types of materials (textbooks/teaching aids) used by the teachers and how relevant these materials are to the teaching and learning of English grammatical structures.

iv) The types of teachers employed to teach English language in the primary school.

v) The areas of difficulty faced by teachers and pupils in the teaching and learning of English grammatical structures in the primary schools.

vi) Suggest how best to improve the teaching and learning of English grammatical structures in the primary school.