Problems Confronting The Teaching And Learning Of English Comprehension Among Selected Secondary School Students’ In Ilorin West Local Government

Purpose of the Study 

The research is aimed at finding out the divergent views of male and female teachers, trained and untrained teachers, experienced and less experienced teachers and students the problems facing effective teaching of comprehension in secondary schools. The study was to find out whether there would be significant difference in the view of male and female teachers. 

The study was to find out the extent to which lack of adequate teaching of comprehension in secondary school affects the teaching of English comprehension.

The study also aims at providing solutions to the problems confronting effective teaching and learning of English comprehension.

Research Questions

The following research questions are raised to guide the study: 

(1) Will there be any significant difference between the view of male and female teachers of the selected secondary schools with respect to the problems facing effective teaching and learning of comprehension in their schools?

(2) Will there be any significant difference between the view of trained and untrained teachers with respect to the problems confronting the teaching and learning comprehension in their schools? 

(3) Will there be any significant difference between the view of experienced and less experienced teachers with respect to the teaching and learning of English comprehension in their schools?

(4) Will there be any significant difference between the view of teachers and students with respect to the teaching and learning of English comprehension in their schools? 

Research Hypotheses 

H01: Will there be any difference in the view of male and female teachers’ with respect to the problems facing effective teaching and learning of English comprehension in secondary schools?

H02: Will there be no difference in the view of trained and untrained teachers’ with respect to the problems facing effective teaching and learning of English comprehension in secondary schools? 

H03: Will there be any difference in the view of teachers and students with respect to problems facing effective teaching and learning of English comprehension in secondary schools? 

Significance of the Study

This study was undertaken with the view that it would provide. Information about the effect of poor comprehension on the academic performance of children in secondary schools.

The study will enable the teacher to re-assess himself, adopts new methods of teaching and evaluation to meet the needs of the children who are poor in reading and in understanding. The study will encourage the students to personally get themselves in reading varieties of texts to increase their vocabulary, readability and raise their academic performance as a result of their being able to read and comprehend. 

It will be useful for the students to know and master the steps to take when reading a given passage in the English language. They will also know the errors usually committed while answering questions in the English language and guide against them.

The curriculum planners too stand to benefit from the study as information from the study will enable them to prepare for the use of a well planned curriculum on English language which will guide textbook, writes and publishers with respect to the patterns they should adhere to in writing and publishing books. Such books should be able to guide pupils from easy to complex reading particularly in comprehension texts and ease the problems of teaching and learning comprehension texts and ease the problems of teaching and learning comprehension in schools. 

It is therefore apparent that this study will be immense value to the overall development of education in Nigeria. 

The study will be useful to the parents as they will be enlightened concerning the advantages of exposing their children or wards to several reading texts as this will increase their readability, improve their vocabulary and accelerate their academic performances.

Scope of the Study

This study is very important for the overall development of Education in Nigeria and the world at large, but the study is delimited to Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State from which five secondary schools were randomly selected in the bid at investigating the problems facing effective teaching and learning of comprehension passages in schools. 

The schools selected for the study are as follows: 

(1) Government High School, Ilorin 

(2) Government Day Secondary School, Adeta 

(3) Baboko Community Secondary, Ilorin 

(4) Government Day Secondary, Barakat  

(5) Mount Carmel College Ilorin. 

The results of this study are therefore limited to them. Also the results of this study will be limited to the responses of the participants that will be involved in the study. Finally, the results of the study will be limited to the variables measured by the research instrument used for this study. 

Definition of Terms 

The following are defined as follows to indicate what they mean in this study. 

Comprehension: Involves ability to understand and translate from one form to another without losing the original meaning of content of what is being told, narrated or written. 

Experienced Teacher: Experienced teachers as used in this study are those teachers that have spent nothing less than ten years in teaching and they have at least Grade Two teacher’s certificates. 

Inexperienced Teachers: Inexperienced teachers are the ones without professional certificate and have less than ten years teaching experience.

Less Experience Teachers: Less experience teachers are teachers with less than ten year teaching experience but have at least Grade Two teachers’ certificate as professionals.

Learning: Is a relatively permanent change in behaviour which occurs as a result of prior experience or practice. 

Students: Students are persons who studied or who are devoted to the acquisition of knowledge. 

Teaching: Teaching is an attempt to help an individual a (learner) to acquire change of some skill, attitude, knowledge ideal or appreciation.