The Correlation Between the Pupils’ Oral English Competence and Their Academic Performance in Primary School
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the relationship between pupils oral English competence and academic performance in primary school
- To ascertain the effect of teachers’ academic qualifications on their ability to teach oral skills in public primary schools
- To identify challenges faced by teachers of English while teaching oral skills in primary schools
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Early Development of Oral Language Skills
It is important that children’s literacy is developed early enough. The ability to listen, speak, read and write will greatly determine not only their success in school but beyond. Children master a language best in their early stages therefore these earlier stages are crucial in their quest to acquire a language. The development of a language begins at births and is a continuous life long process. The main purpose of acquiring a language is to communicate. Chomsky (1986) in Innateness Theory asserts that the acquisition of a language is innate. Whether first, second or third language, the process of acquisition 21 remains the same irrespective of the age. The same language developmental challenges are faced when acquiring the first language both by children and adults (same type of grammatical errors, picking up chunks of language without understanding them, relying on human input etc Collier, (1998). The first stage in language learning is the pre-production stage. At this stage, a learner can only listen and not speak. The best such learners can do is repeat what has been said by someone else without necessary having the knowledge of what it means. They are merely copying and not really producing. They copy gestures and movements to suggest understanding. To utilize the ability to listen, teachers should pay more attention to listening comprehension activities and on building a receptive vocabulary. Repetition as a technique is of more use at this stage (Eithne et. al, 2012) The second stage is the early production stage. Here children attempt to utter some words. They produce brief language chunks that have been memorized though they may not necessarily be correct. They do more of listening to people around them and increase their vocabulary. Speech emerges at the third stage in language learning. Here, the learner has a remarkable range of vocabulary and can use simple short phrases and sentences in his/her conversations. They are able to ask simple questions which are not always grammatically correct. They can start conversations with people around them. Given simple sentences/passages, they can read and comprehend simple stories. (Eithneet al, 2012). 22 The fourth stage is the intermediate fluency stage. At this stage, the learner has the ability to use more complex sentences in both speaking and writing to express himself. The learners can seek for clarification on the content they are learning in class. With the teachers’ support, the teachers are able to work and comprehension of the other subjects improves. They are now in a position to integrate various techniques to internalize knowledge. At this stage, teachers are encouraged to concentrate on learning techniques as learners can comprehend complicated ideas. (Eithne et al, 2012). The last stage is the advanced fluency stage. At this stage, learners can coherently speak the language. They use more complex sentence structure and can comprehend complex concepts. In relation to the study, it is obvious that teachers play a vital role in the use of varied strategies that will help enhance oral proficiency in English among lower primary school pupils (Eithne et al, 2012). Based on this literature, early development of oral skills can minimize challenges that faces learners when in the process of acquiring oral skills in latter classes or grades. Therefore the finding out about challenges facing the teachers of English while teaching oral skills in tis study was necessary
Techniques of teaching English Language
According to Verghese (1989), the teaching of English language has employed different strategies over the years. The earliest method is known as the Grammar- Translation Method. This method is based on the assumption that language is primarily graphic, that the main purpose of second language study is to build knowledge of the structure of the language either as a tool for literary research and translation or for the development of the learner‘s logical powers, and that the process of second language learning must be deductive, requires effort, and must be carried out with constant reference to the learner‘s first language. The techniques put more weight on the mastery of language rules and translation of related texts, and paid minimal attention to oral skills. There is also the natural method. In this method, it was believed that a learner could learn a language from the natural environment. A learner was to be maximally exposed to the target language without any intrusion of another language. The learner’s caretaker was therefore expected to provide the perfect language input for the learner to copy as he/she learns the language. The oral method is another technique used in the teaching of language. This technique emphasizes that to get a native speaker’s performance of a foreign language such as 25 English one should know well how to order words, their morphology and how their word forms are employed to come up with meaningful patterns of expression. A teacher, when using this method is expected to produce correct speech sounds which a learner is expected to hear and imitate and later on expected to recognize and reproduce it in an appropriate situation with an assumption that he gets meaning from the sounds.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to the correlation between the pupils oral English competence and their academic performance in primary school.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information to the correlation between the pupils oral English competence and their academic performance in primary school. 200 staff of selected primary school in Esan West, Edo state Area was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain The correlation between the pupils oral English competence and their academic performance in primary school.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of the correlation between the pupils oral English competence and their academic performance in primary school.
Summary
This study was on the correlation between the pupils oral English competence and their academic performance in primary school. Three objectives were raised which included: To ascertain the relationship between pupils oral English competence and academic performance in primary school, to ascertain the effect of teachers’ academic qualifications on their ability to teach oral skills in public primary schools and to identify challenges faced by teachers of English while teaching oral skills in primary schools. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of selected primary school in Esan West, Edo state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up headmasters, teachers, senior staff and junior staff were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Whereas oral skills are taught in schools, teachers do not use a variety of instructional strategies that play a major role in achieving communication competence. Use of question and answer method remain the most frequently used teaching and learning activity in English oral communication skills. Activities like debating, dialogue, storytelling and oral presentations, listening comprehensions though recommended in the English syllabus seemed to be ignored as they were not given adequate emphasis and yet they have a high potential for improving oral skills. Passage reading used by teachers of English fosters development of oral skills. In addition, teachers employed interactive techniques through the use of English as a medium of instruction in their classes while teaching oral skills. Therefore, teaching of oral skills in English deserves much of teachers’ attention because language learning can effectively be taught if teachers integrate use of structured passages and interactive activities in class.
Recommendation
Teachers should design more interactive oral strategies such as debates, role play, reciting of poems and instructional activities that allow students to participate in the learning process.
Teachers of English should try and advance their teaching skills through attending more professional trainings and that they should adopt a learner centered method of teaching to allow for active participation of students in order to encourage them to communicate effectively and intelligibly.
References
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