The Effects of Qualification of English Teachers On The Performance Of Secondary School Students in External Examinations

THE EFFECTS OF QUALIFICATION OF ENGLISH TEACHERS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN EXTERNAL EXAMINATIONS (A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED SCHOOLS IN NSUKKA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA)

Academic and Professional Qualification of English Teachers

There is a direct relationship between the educational qualification of the teachers and the teaching of English in our senior secondary schools. The more trained the teacher is, the more efficient the teacher will impact to the students. Some scholars have tried to prove that fluent speakers and native speakers of English but without teaching qualification are not automatically good English teachers.

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Hill (1974) quotes “Although English was my mother tongue, I was surprised and worried to find how little I know about it and just as surprised and worried to discover that despite the fact that it was my mother tongue, it did not automatically mean that I could teach it to others efficiency”.

The importance of the qualification of a teacher in the teaching and learning situation cannot be over emphasized. The teacher in the language learning situation is more than one who serves as just a guide. The language teacher has a very great role to play in the classroom situation.

The teacher is the most important single element in any teaching situation. Naturally the general teaching skill of the instructor, his special training and his linguistic ability will also affect the teaching learning situation.

Finochiaro (1954) asserts that it should however be noted that technique themselves cannot compensate for poor language proficiency, though they definitely enhance the effectiveness of the teacher’s needs to have a high degree of mastery of English Language, in addition to his professional techniques of teaching.

Broughten et al (1980) points out, learning to use a language, this involves a great deal more than acquiring some grammar and vocabulary and a reasonable pronunciation. It involves the competence to suit the language to the situation, the participant and the basic purpose. Conversely and equally important, it involves competence to interpret what other speakers mean.

The quality of the teacher is determined by the quality of their education and qualification in the teaching of English language and the experience gained in the job. A trained teacher who is teaching English language knows exactly what kind of behaviour he expects from his students and how this is related to the aims of the lesson i.e. whether their class work is silent like writing or reading or controlled oral activity at class or group level or a free group activity.

In Nigerian today, the qualification of English teachers who are already in the classroom has been neglected. For instance, at the junior level, no special qualification in English teaching is required in other to become an English teacher. Usually the class teacher teaches all the subject in his/her class and it just happens that English is one of the subjects taught. Most of the teachers at this level are themselves very poor in their use of spoken English and very few of them can be described as competent in their use of language.

At the secondary school or intermediate level, a great number of teachers of Englsih language are NCE holders while the majority in many others cases are people who have themselves been trained only to this level.

The graduate teachers at this level fall into three groups.

  1. Those who graduate from university
  2. Native speakers of English language who did not go to universities.
  • Non-native speakers of English who stopped receiving formal instruction in English language (as a subject) at ordinary level. In view of the poor quality of the English teachers already in the classroom, the low performance or falling standard of English in Nigeria can be attributed to the quality of teachers that are teaching English in our institutions of learning.

Bloomfield (1972) states that the fact that every Nigeria family does not speak English language makes it difficult for some Nigeria children to have access to speaking English language, except in schools where it is used as the medium of instruction. In such situation, English is hardly spoken outside the four walls of the classroom; hence most Nigerian students have their greatest difficulty in effective communication in English language.

This situation tends to be growing worse, most secondary school leavers today, are identified by their paper qualification and not by their practical demonstration of the skills, which they ought to have acquired in the school. The so-called –language majors are not exception to this disheartening and embarrassing situation in not imparting knowledge proficiently since they code their skill and methods of teaching.

 

  • The Curriculum of English Teachers Education

Since the teachers of English language in Nigerian secondary schools are mainly graduates of Department of English of universities and colleges of Education, the discussion in terms of curriculum will be limited to  these two levels of institutions, English course offered by these institution will be examined under the following headings: language, literature and general linguistics. This will however be on a very brief term owing to the nature and purpose of this research.

University courses, according to historical accounts in most of the West African Universities were until recently colleges and universities in English-speaking countries, Britain and U.S.A. Consequently, the structive and content of the courses in their English departments reflect the needs in native English-speaking situations. Some of these universities are even some years behind their foreign models. Looking at their syllabuses, one may find out that some have tried to adjust their courses to local needs.

Literature is well provided for in most of these universities and colleges of educations because this has been the traditional discipline in the English departments.

General linguistics has however become an important but an optional course in most of these universities and colleges of education. But how much of the theory is brought to bear on the problem of English as a second language is a matter for speculation. In some cases it is regarded as a separate discipline not directly related to the English language courses.

Adekunle (1969) reveals that the most neglected area in all the universities is the language courses. Language courses are listed in the calendar under various titles: use of English “problem of contemporary English usage” “Spoken English” and “conversational English”. “Only one of these universities examined language in form of oral test and offer use of English in the final degree examination”.

There has been little or no change in this trend; some universities still neglect language courses. The colleges of Education are not better than the universities in most of the cases therefore the programme run by these institutions are very similar.

It therefore means that in addition to the problems of unqualified teachers who are already in the classroom there is need to review the entire curriculum of English teacher’s education. For instance, general linguistics, according to Adekunle (1969) is offered in all the colleges as a compulsory course because of its importance in speech and language improvement and as indispensable background for the methodology course. Adekunle explained further that “it is difficult to find out from the curriculum or syllabus how much work is done apart from the popular constrictive analysis at phonological level”.

This suggests that the general low performance in English by our students both at the secondary school external examination can be attributed to the quality of teachers teaching English. Our problems in this regard therefore are:

  1. The problem of untrained teachers who have received no professional training in English teaching and
  2. Those who have received the training as English teachers, but half baked training.
  • Instructional Strategies used by English Teachers

Many scholars have advocated different methods and approaches to the teaching of English language. Some of the methods and approaches to the teaching of English language are as follows:

  • Grammar translation method
  • The direct method
  • The Drill method
  • The situational approach
  • Communicative approach
  • Functional-national approach
  • The oral approach

Grammar translation method:- This is a method in which students are taught how to translate the target language (English) into their mother tongue. The students are preoccupied by learning the grammar often leads to learning about the language itself. This method is an old method. Translation was particularly an important device when much international communication was conducted through Latin, but when used as the main procedure for teaching spoken language, it led to too much concentration on the written and particularly literacy forms and too little as natural speech. Students are asked to translate a text from the target language into their mother tongue without knowing the sentence pattern and meaning. This method as investigated by some scholars is not the best method of teaching any language.

Hill (1974) asserts “I have had a lot of experience of work and I am certain in my mind that translation is not at all a good test of comprehensive or composition”.

It is possible, therefore to the bilingual to speak two languages and yet to be the other, translations that do not show ones.

The Direct method: This method is sometimes called the natural method. It tried to follow the same line as those which we followed when we learnt our language as children. It reflects the use of translation and stresses practice instead of theory. Students learn to speak by speaking to understand, by listening to read, by reading and so on. They are introduced into the language at first in simple form and then in a progressively more difficult form. This method is more acceptable than the grammar translation method.

The Drill method: is characterized by continuous repetition of a sentence like “This is a book, this is a book, and so on”. This often results into mechanical repetition of what the teachers want the students to say.

Structural approach: This approach involves the selecting and grading of the structures of a language rather than words. The problem with this method is that if centers on sentence pattern and less on sound pattern.

The situation approach: This structured approach is often combined with the situational approach which means that every thing that is taught should be taught in a situation or context that links the words with the thing the refer to, for example; if you want to teach, “This is a book” you should actually hold a book and demonstrate to the pupils what you are talking about. That is utterance. This book should grow out of the situation of having a book and wanting to tell the pupils what its name is in English. The meaning of words and of structure is only the situations in which they can be used. We know the meaning of apple not because we have looked it up in a dictionary but because we have heard the word, when we have seen an apple or when we have seen the picture of an apple.

The communicative approach: The basic principle of this approach is that the knowledge of the language means more than the ability to produce sentence in that language. That is to say that the ability to produce sentence is not the only skills, which the learner needs to acquire because of knowing how to understand, speak, read and write sentence in that language. This approach emphasizes the ability to use sentences appropriately to achieve the communicative purpose. For example, this is a boy, is a correct sentence in English, but if a question is asked thus: “where is your father?” and the reply comes “this is a boy” we then know that the communicative purpose has not been achieved.

The ability of the non-professional English teacher to handle the language teaching effectively is therefore questionable considering the methods and approaches above.

Ward Hough (1969) believes that every classroom practice that we derives come from an understanding theory of some kinds, every knowledge, every bad practice gives evidence of some or other weakness in our understanding.

  • Teachers Attitudes

The teacher occupies a key position in any classroom situation if the desired learning outcomes are to be achieved. There is no doubt that the teacher’s personality affects the teacher, student’s relationship. The teacher’s philosophy, his/her special qualities and traits can affect the student’s success.

Farrant (1980) said that the good teacher should possess some characteristics that are worthy of emulation. He should be humorous energetic, enthusiastic, humble, kind and friendly

Onwuegbu (1979) in analyzing the qualities of a good teacher “states that a good teacher is not necessary one who is fluent with words nor is one who dishes out knowledge to the learner. A good teacher possesses according to Onwuedgu, at least the following three qualities:

  • He/she knows his/her subject matter
  • Posses a Regis-table certificate to teach
  • Express him/herself fluently with the official

language of instruction – English language.

It is her knowledge to teach and the method of the learner that helps her to decide both the difficulty level of it is well known assertion that:

  • A poor teacher tells
  • An average teacher informs
  • An outstanding teacher inspires

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