TIME FOR COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES, COURSE BOOK CONTENT ADEQUACY AND LEARNING OUTCOMES IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

Sunday Gbenga ALONGE, Cyril Abioye Charlses OLOWOYEYE

ABSTRACT

English Grammar (EG) is an important aspect of English Language. Proficiency in EG is indispensable for fluent oral and written communication. Academic records have shown that many public Senior Secondary School (SSS) students in Ekiti State are deficient in EG, which partly accounts for their poor expressive skills. Previous studies concentrated more on EG instruction in native English and English as a Foreign Language contexts than on EG instruction in English as a second language context. This study, therefore, was carried out to investigate Time for Communicative Activities,TCA, Coursebook Content Adequacy,CCA and learning outcomes (achievement and attitude) in EG in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The mixed methods (QUAN+ qual) design was adopted, simple random sampling technique was employed to select 10 Local Government Education Areas-LGEAs- out of the existing 16 in Ekiti State and 50 public SSS (five per LGEA), while 50 teachers (one per SSS) teaching EG in SSII were purposively selected. Fifty intact classes of SSII (one per SSS) with a total of 2000 students participated in the study. The instruments used were EG Achievement Test, Attitude to EG Questionnaire, TCA Observation, CCA Rating. In-depth interviews were conducted with Heads of Department. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while the qualitative data were content- analysed.

The age of the participants were 30.80 ±2.40 years for teachers and 16.90 + 2.06 for students, while 54.0 % and 51.6%, respectively were female. The CCA (2.14) was adequate, but TCA (2.11) was not, against the thresholds of 2.00 and 2.50, respectively. The CCA (r=0.63) and TCA (r=0.28) had significant positive relationships with students’ achievement in EG. TCA (r=0.30), CCA (r=0.27) had significant relationships with attitude to EG. The composite contribution of the two factors to achievement (F_(4;45) =450.57; Adj. R² = 0.97) was significant, accounting for 97.0% of the variance. The composite contribution of the twofactors to attitude (F_{(4, 45)} = 4.95; Adj. R² = 0.24) was significant, accounting for 24.0% of the variance. The CCA and TCA did not make significant relative contributions to achievement as well as contribution to attitude. A few contents of EG syllabus were not covered by coursebooks used. Insufficient coursebook contents and TCA to enable students to practice the EG concepts learnt accounted for the poor expressive skills of the students.

Keywords: Grammar communicative activities, English grammar coursebook, Learning outcomes in English grammar