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IMPACT OF
TEACHER-COMPETENCE ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
ABSTRACT
The study
attempted to examine the relationship between teacher preparation, professional
development and students’ academic performance in selected secondary schools in
Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos State. In the study, relevant and related
literature was reviewed under sub headings. The descriptive research survey design
was applied in the assessment of the respondents’ opinions, with the use of the
questionnaire and the sampling technique. In this study, two hundred
respondents were selected randomly through the application of the stratified
random selection method to represent the entire population of the study.
Five null
hypotheses were formulated and tested with the use of the Pearson Product
Moment Correlation Coefficient tool at 0.05 level of significance. Results
indicate that: a significant relationship exists between teachers’ mastery of
content and students’ academic performance in the school, a significant
relationship exists between teachers’ teaching method and students’ academic
performance, teachers’ educational qualification had a statistically significance
relationship with students’ academic performance, there is a significant
relationship between teachers’ years of teaching and students’ academic
performance and it was revealed that a significant relationship exists between
teachers’ attitude and students’ academic performance. The following
recommendations were made by the researchers at the end of the study, teachers
should always endeavour to teach well in the school, knowing that, they are the
people that are responsible for the moulding and changing the characters of the
children in the school. and students should be responsive to their teachers.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.10Background
to the Study
The teacher
occupies a very important position in any school system. According to Akande
(2005), teachers’ work is very crucial because without the teacher, there will
be no president, no governors, no senators and illiteracy would have covered
the whole earth. With the teacher, there is enlightenment, knowledge and
civilization in the world. No nation can rise above its teachers. Therefore,
the teaching profession is important because it is the job that produces
educated and learned people for the development of the society (Wuji, 2005).
Before one
becomes a professional English Language teacher, a studious stage is passed
through. For instance Uzor (2006) agrees that a teacher passes through the
teacher-training college or the University education to become a trained
teacher. According to Uzor, the essence of an English language teacher going
through rigorous teacher-education or training, is to arm oneself with the
appropriate skill, ability and expertise that are inherent in the teaching and
learning processes in the subject-matter. As Onyeji (2007) puts it, English
language teachers are trained in order to acquire the needed skills of teaching
i.e. knowing what to teach (mastery of content) and knowing how to teach
(mastery of methodology). The English language teacher, who is trained and
experienced, equally knows how to manage the classroom and how to deliver the
objectives of what is taught in the classroom. At any stage or school level, a
teacher requires to acquire cognate experience and training to effectively
deliver the good in the classroom, appropriately as a professional. Abagunde
(2004), opined that, students’ performance in English language is largely
dependent on the extent of how teaching is carried out in the classroom.
For an
English teacher to effectively handle any subject, preparation is needed. This
could be in terms of reading through what is to be taught, writing note of
lessons, doting appropriately all ‘Ts’ and all ‘I’s’, in order to deliver the
lesson effectively and for the students to maximize the objectives of what has
been taught. According to Arinze (2004), effective teacher preparation in
English language comes as a result of previous professional development the
teacher had undergone. This culminates from the strict education the teacher
has received which had helped him to master the nitty-gritty of the arts of
teaching and classroom management (Greenfield, 2006). Greenfield observes that
both the preparation and professional development of a teacher, give the
teacher the impetus and academic authority to effectively teach in the
classroom, and by extension, the effective learning ability of the students.
Greenfield is of the opinion that, effective teaching in English language as a
result of effective preparation and professional development, result in
effective students’ academic achievement in any subject-matter, at any school
level (primary, secondary and tertiary institutions).
A teacher in
English language gets prepared to teach by getting professionally developed.
For instance Arisekola (2007) opines that, there are some stages of preparing
or developing a teacher to get him/her ready for the classroom job of teaching
and learning. At the primary school, the teacher receives the Nigerian
Certificate of Education (NCE) to teach at the basic level, for the secondary
schools, the teacher receives the degree or certificate of Bachelor of Arts in
Education (B.A.Ed); or Masters in Education (M.Ed), while for the tertiary
institutions, the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) degree is required for the
teacher to effectively teach and for the students to perform adequately. The above
degrees or certificates, enable the English language teacher to carry out the
teaching work without let or hindrance, and for the students to learn with high
academic achievement (Nkemjika, 2000).
A teacher in
English language needs to be developed professionally through the
teacher-educational programmes that are available in the Nigerian higher
institutions. According to Lawal (2002), an English language teacher is said to
be effectively developed and professionally competent, when he/she is specifically
trained or educated in order to train others in the school system, the
(learner(s). Aside from knowing how to educate the learner(s), the teacher who
is professionally developed, has some personality variables that distinguish
him/her from a non-professional, non-trained teacher. Leon (2004), says that a
non-professional teacher is a ‘cheat’, because he does not know how to teach
and as such, the learner learns poorly under a non-professional, non-trained
teacher’s tutelage. Good teaching begets good learning. Trained teachers in
English language who are professionally sound, produce students who are
academically sound. The primary goal of a teacher is for the students to have
high academic laurels and to excel in their educational careers.
Adeleke
(2006) is of the view that, teachers’ performance in English language is
determined by the performance of the students at the end of any examination(s)
or tests in the class. Highly trained, prepared, professional developed and
experienced teachers in English language, produce students that are excellent
in academic and in characters as well, be it at the primary, secondary or
tertiary levels of any educational system. A student is said to have performed
well if he/she scores 60% and above in any examination(s) and test(s) organized
by the school at the end of any school year or session. A traditional
assumption in teaching has been that students require challenging learning
tasks, tasks of intermediate difficulty. This idea has been disproved. Research
shows that students need and enjoy very high success rates, which come only
from tasks at an appropriate difficulty level that are clearly taught and
readily comprehended. For example, Good and Good (2001) and Everton (2003),
found that high socio-economic status elementary children learned best when the
teachers’ questions elicited about 70% correct responses, while low
socio-economic status pupils learned best with about 80% correct answers to
questions. They concluded that learning proceeds best when the material is
some-what new or challenging, yet relatively easy for children to understand
and integrate with existing knowledge and skills. Another study carried out by
Filby (2005), concluded that, younger students and less able students, almost
errorless, performance high during the teaching of an effective teacher, which
equally produces better and greater satisfaction to both the teacher and the
students.
In effective
schools, effective English language teachers monitor students’ progress which
takes place at all levels of the school system. Effective English language
teachers monitor minute-by-minute comprehension, reading and writing skills of
students, their overall success and engagement rates along with the longer term
achievement records of every student in the subject-matter. Effective English
language teachers monitor achievement scores for individual students, class
interactions among students, students’ grade levels and so on. Improvement
minded English language teachers also monitor average achievement scores for
their students, comparing their performances with the performances of other
students in the classrooms in a particular school in order to know whether
their students are high achievers in the subject or not (Boot 2003). Whatever level
or form, monitoring of students’ progress takes effective school teachers of
note to use the achievement information as the basis for modifications of
teaching and learning processes or school wide improvement plans in English
language (Nwagbara, 2007).
Theoretical
Framework
1.2 The
Theories of Learning (S-R Theories) (Skinner, 1991)
The (S-R)
theory of learning propounded by B.S. Skinner (1991), underpins this study
because, it is the theory that concerns learning which is the dependent
variable in the study. The most crucial features of the connectionist or S-R
theories of learning and more specifically, behavior, are contained in the two
important letters ‘S’ and ‘R’ and the hyphen in between them. ‘S’ means
stimulus or thinking bond. According to this school of thought, which includes
great behaviourists like Watson (1946), Thorndike (1949), Hull (1943), Pavlov
(1958) and Skinner (1991), behavior is a transaction between the stimulus or
stimuli that impinge on an organism and the resultant responses, the ‘R’. This
connotes that learning involves some lasting or permanent changes in the
relationships between the ‘S’ and ‘R’ connection. The behaviourists emphasized
that all knowledge emanate from the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch
and taste. For the behaviourists, man is born with the ability and capacity to
acquire knowledge and everything he knows comes from his sensory experience.
Sensory qualities are connected in the mind, because they occur closely
together in time or space as one interacts with his environment. Learning
therefore, occurs through close association of events or ideas. For the
behaviourists, learning occurs only through experience. Skinner (1991), did not
reckon with the existence of the innate ideas in man as being responsible for
his knowledge. To him, learning is mechanistic; that is to assume that the mind
is machine-like and of simple elements with no mysterious elements and
therefore, the product of life experience. Thus, behavior is not learnt but
inborn in man. For instance, the baby-sucking behavior as well as the sexual
behaviour in man, are not learnt, but inborn behaviours. Although, some
behaviours could be explained in terms of maturation. They include walking,
speech, flying of birds in the sky as well as swimsging of tadpoles in the sea.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The problem
inherent in the teaching and learning processes in English language, is as a
result of teacher–factor. For instance, the academic performance of students is
affected negatively, when teachers do not possess the necessary teaching
competences in terms of mastery of the contents or possession of good teaching
methods in English language as a subject of study in schools. Also, teachers’
negative attitudes, poor personality, inexperience, poor classroom management,
poor personal hygiene, poor teacher–student relationship, lack of communicative
skills and poor judgments in the classrooms, contribute greatly to the poor
academic achievement of students in English language in the schools. Apart from
the above mentioned problems, many English teachers are lazy and therefore,
find it difficult to prepare themselves before appearing in the classrooms.
This has caused them to be poorly exposed to the course materials and absolute deficiency
appearing in their mastery of what to teach poor methodoly on how to teach the
subject in the classrooms. By extension, this has caused the great down-ward
trends of the quality in the educational standards in Nigerian school system,
with the attendant low performance of students in both spoken and written
English language in and out of the school.
Many
teachers who teach English language in primary, secondary and tertiary
institutions these days are “cheats”, because they do not possess the required
professional skills, the required cognate experience and the training that is
innate in effective classroom teachers. Lack of competence and professional
skills, are some of the main factors militating against high academic
performance by students in the Nigerian school system.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose
of this study is to examine the impact of teacher-competence on students’
academic achievement in selected Senior Secondary Schools in Education District
IV of Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos, Nigeria.
The specific
objectives of this study will be amongst others to:
(1) Find out whether teachers’
mastery of content affects students’ academic achievements in schools.
(2) Examine the difference between
teachers’ teaching methods and students’ academic achievement in schools.
(3) Investigate whether there is
difference between teachers’ qualifications and students’ academic achievement
in schools.
(4) Find out whether there is
difference between teachers’ experience and students’ academic performance.
1.4 Research Questions
Based on the
background information and statement of the problem of the present study, the
following research questions will be raised to guide the study:
1. Will teachers’ mastery of
content affect students’ academic performance in schools?
2. Is there any significant
difference between teaching methods and students’ academic performance in
schools?
3. Is there any significant
difference between teacher’s educational qualification and students’ academic
performance in schools?
4. Is there any difference
between teacher’s experience and students’ academic achievement in schools?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
In this
study, the following hypothesis will be tested:
1. There will be no significant relationship
between teacher’s mastery of content and students’ academic performance in
schools.
2. There will be no significant relationship
between teaching methods and students’ academic performance in schools.
3. There will be no significant difference
in student’s academic performance due to teachers’ educational qualifications
in schools.
4. There will be no significant difference
between teachers’ years of experience and students’ academic performance in
schools.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This study
will be of great benefit to the following:
(1) Teachers: They would benefit
from the findings and recommendations of this study because it will give them
an insight on how to carry out their jobs in the school. It will enable
teachers to be more productive in doing their daily job of teaching and
learning. With this study, many teachers would be-oriented in the art of
teaching knowing fully well that the way they teach will affect students’
academic achievement in schools.
(2) Students: They would benefit
from the study because it will help them to have the understanding that their
teachers required to be an exemplary one, if his/her teaching experiences would
be of great benefit to the child or the student. With the findings and the
recommendations of this study, students would be able to identify teachers who
“cheat” as a result of incompetences and real teachers of note in the school
system. With this study also, students would be able to know that they need to
be taught by trained and experienced teachers if they would put up high
performances in their academic careers.
(3) Parents: They would learn that
the careers of their children hang in the balance, if they are being coached by
unprofessional, inexperienced teachers. With this study, parents would be able
to know that there is a great difference between the academic achievement of
students who are taught by well trained teachers and those taught by
non-trained, inexperienced teachers.
(4) Society: The society will be
able to understand the difference in the academic performance of children
taught by two types of teachers (the trained and the untrained) in the school
system. This is because the society benefits if the children are well brought
up by a well trained teacher. Students will be well behaved apart from the
exhibition of high academic achievement, and this will better the lots of the
society.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This study
will cover the impact of teacher-competence on academic achievement of students in selected Senior Secondary Schools
in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Teaching
competence: This is the expertise of the teacher in English language or any
other course taught in schools. It means in order words, the mastery of
teaching contents and the methodology in classroom presentation of English
language.
Education:
Education is derived from the Latin word “educare” which means to draw out.
Education is therefore defined as a process of drawing out and developing the
potentialities of an individual.
The School:
The school is one of the chief agents of education. It is a formal and a
planned institution with rules and regulations established for educating the
young and charged with the responsibility of transmitting the cultural heritage
of the people by showing knowledge and its appreciation as well as adherence to
its norms.
Teaching:
Hyman (1990) sees teaching as the art and practice of imparting to a learner
knowledge, skills, values and norms that will be useful to the total
development of the individual.
Training:
This refers to giving a course of specific instruction or practice to a learner
with the purpose to shape, develop or acquire appreciable habits.
Indoctrination:
This is a process in which the learner is compelled to accept a set of ideas
without questioning.
Coaching:
This involves teaching, training, instructing or advising an individual or
persons in a particular area of subject in which a student is deficient.
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