This study was designated to investigate the effect of the communicative method on the performance of secondary school students, in Oral English. The study employed a true experimental design. One boys’ school in urban area of Enugu Education Zone was chosen for the study. An intact class of 40 students was randomly selected from the school. The students were randomly grouped into experimental and control groups with each group having 20 students. The treatment group was taught oral English using communicative method while the control group was taught the same subject using the Conventional method.
Five research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. An oral production test and observation were used to collect data on the students’ performance. The data were analysed using mean, standard deviation and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the study revealed that communicative method significantly enhanced students ‘pronunciation of speech sounds more than the conventional method. There is no significant difference in the use of stress by the students taught with the conventional method and those taught with the communicative method. There is no significant difference in the use of grammatical words/expressions of students taught with the two methods. A significant difference exists in the use of social conventions of speaking by the students in the treatment group and those in the control group; and, the students taught oral English with the communicative method significantly performed higher than those taught with the conventional method.
Based on the discussion of the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that oral
English should be taught using the communicative method as it is hoped that this method will help to
minimize the present problems which the students encounter in learning to communicate orally. The students will be able to speak correctly by making full and proper use of the many activities presented in the CLT method. In addition, teachers should endeavour to provide opportunities for students to engage in group discussions. This will enable the students to make frequent oral use of the language.
The limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also given.
The teaching and learning of English language in Nigeria has a long history. With the advent of the British in the country, English was designated a socio-political and an economic language. Thus, the Nigerian constitution (1999:55) states that “the business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English . . .”
Also, The Federal Ministry of Education, in the National Policy on Education (2004;16), indicates that “the medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the language of the immediate environment for the first three years’ and ‘from the fourth year, English shall progressively be used as a medium of instruction…” In the light of this, therefore, English became a medium of communication in the country and the language of instruction in educational institutions; thus, the interest in learning the language increased. The imperative to learn the language was strengthened by the introduction of the language as a vital subject of study in the formal system of education especially in the secondary schools where it is a core subject. Due to this, the secondary school students’ performance in the subject is constantly monitored both by the school and the society at large.
For years now, the performance of the Nigerian secondary school students in English language has deteriorated. World Bank Report of February, 2001, on the quality of Nigerian university graduates, notes that poor mastery of English language is one of the areas of degeneration in the educational system (Sunday Guardian, March 2001). Most often, comments on the fallen standard are based on the judgment that students no longer speak correct English. Many students have been observed to converse in pidgin English and at times in their mother tongue because they cannot express themselves adequately in the standard English (Mgbodile
and Afangideh, 2005). For this reason, students ought to study oral English, properly. Studying oral English involves not only the learning of how to communicate orally in English but also to acquire the ability to understand and evaluate what others say (Akeredolu-Ale, 2005)), According to Mgbodile (1999), having competence in oral English is having the ability to understand and produce:
- the English sound system,
- stress, intonation and rhythm,
- correct grammatical usage of words, phrases and idioms,
- different styles to suit different topics and various levels of audience,
- social conventions of speaking.
The production of sounds in English comprises two features; the segmental and supra-segmental features. The segmental features are the consonants and the vowels. These are individual sound segments such as /b/, /k/, /e/ and /i/ while the supra-segmental features are stress and intonation. Knowledge of these sounds is important for intelligibility in communication (Onuigbo, 2003).
Stress is defined by Gimson [1980] as the acoustic energy which a speaker uses to produce a syllable. There are three degrees of stress: primary, secondary and contrastive stress but in this study, two degrees of stress shall be recognized: stressed and unstressed syllables. In English pronunciation, stress is very meaningful. A change in the stress pattern of a word may change completely the meaning and class of the word. Stress is problematic to many Nigerian students of English because the students’ mother tongue [MT] is syllable-stressed while English Language is stress-timed.
Intonation is the rise and fall in the pitch of voice. This rise and fall is important because as Onuigbo (2001) states, it makes the listener understand the attitude of the speaker. Failure to make correct use of English intonation may lead to a collapse in communication between native and non-native speakers of English. This importance of intonation may be the reason why Elugbe (2004) notes that students can not speak good English if they can not handle stress and intonation.
An important aspect of speaking which is usually neglected in the teaching of Oral English is discourse. Discourse entails that the students engage in conversations or discussions, using language expressions they know. Ameh (2002), citing Obanya and Dada (1983), indicates that one of the skills of oral English which the teacher should teach his/her students is the ability to speak correct sentences in the language for purpose of conversation, self expression and interaction in day-to-day activities. To engage in discourse, the students should know the social conventions of speaking. Social conventions of speaking are unwritten existing rules and ways which tell speakers of a language that language is used in socially acceptable ways to begin, interrupt and end conversations without being impolite (Mgbodile, 1999).
Proper teaching and learning of these aspects of oral English will lead to oral English proficiency. Oral English proficiency is often an evidence of competence in English as a second language (ESL). This is because most times, students tend to write as they speak. Students who mispronounce certain sounds or words write likewise. Thus, Elugbe (2004) states that the development of appropriate basic language skills in the learners is the proper way of preparing them for meaningful learning because every teaching and learning involves oral communication. It is necessary, therefore, that the learner is made to acquire this important tool. Unfortunately, more attention tends to be paid to the acquisition of the writing skill while the oral skill receives little attention.
