ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study was to empirically investigate the effect of mnemonics on Nigerian senior secondary school students’ achievement in English stress patterns. It was also set out to determine the effect of gender and school location as well as the interaction effect of method and gender on senior secondary school students’ achievement in English stress patterns. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. A quasi-experimental design was used. The type was the non-equivalent control group, pretest, post-test design. The sample for the study consisted of 272 SSS II students from four co-educational secondary schools in Nsukka Local Government Area, which was the area of the study. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used, first to draw the four co-educational schools and two intact classes from each school, and to assign schools to experimental and control groups. The instrument used for data collection was a 50-item English Stress Patterns Achievement Test (ESPAT), face validated by five experts in Language Education and Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The instrument was trial tested on twenty students from Community Secondary School, Uda, Enugu Ezike. The data obtained from the trial test were used to calculate the reliability of the instrument using Kuder Richardson’s (K – R 20) formula. It yielded an index of 0.93. The instrument was administered as pretest before the experiment and post-test after the experiment. The data obtained were used in answering the research questions and testing the hypotheses. The research questions were answered using mean scores, while the hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The major findings of the study were that the mnemonic technique had a significant effect on students’ achievement in English Stress patterns, but gender was not a significant factor in students’ achievement in English stress patterns. School location also had no significant effect on students’ achievement in English stress patterns, and there was no significant interaction effect of method and gender on students’ achievement in English stress patterns. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that secondary school teachers should make use of mnemonics in teaching the stress patterns of English words, while curriculum planners should incorporate the use of mnemonics in teaching the stress patterns of English words in the next review of the curriculum, as well as explore other areas where mnemonics could be useful in second language teaching and learning. The limitations of the study were outlined and suggestions for further research were proffered.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
No human society may be able to thrive in the absence of language. This is so because human beings are in constant interaction with one another and language is an indispensable vehicle for such interaction. Life without language actually would be a miserable one as individuals would collapse under the weight of unexpressed thoughts, feelings, ideas and needs. This is why Akindele & Adegbite (1999) note that language is used by man to communicate his individual thoughts, inner feelings and personal psychological experience. Mgbodile (1999) avers that language is man’s most basic tool without which it will be difficult for human beings to live together, to think, to act and to share ideas together.
In Nigeria, many indigenous languages like Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba have been used through history for the satisfaction of the human need of communication and, even after the appearance of the English language in Nigeria’s linguistic arena through trade and colonization, these indigenous languages are very much in use. However, owing to the kaleidoscopic linguistic diversity that was already in existence in Nigeria before colonization (Akindele and Adegbite, 1999), the English language was naturally enthroned as a second language for the same purpose of maintaining effective interaction across the diverse linguistic groups.
Indeed, several years after the end of British colonization in 1960, the English language has continued to be the dominant language because no indigenous language is spoken by an overwhelming majority of the people (Azikiwe, 1998). Ogbuehi (2001) posits that the existence of many apparently unrelated languages made it imperative for English to be adopted as the official language in Nigeria. Ever since then, it has continued to perform a bonding common service to the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic groups in Nigeria.
It is in the field of education that the role of the English language in Nigeria is glaring. According to the National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004), the English language is not only stipulated to be progressively used as a medium of instruction from the fourth year of primary school, but it is also made a core and compulsory subject at the junior and senior secondary schools. It is a gateway to the learning of other subjects at every level of education in Nigeria. One is required to record a credit pass in it before one can gain admission into any of the Nigerian universities (Adepoju, 2008). Thus, English is not only the criterion for measuring the quality of certificates, but also a yardstick for assessing the depth of one’s learning. This is why Baldeh (1990) claims that research has proved that failure in education is primarily a linguistic failure. In our context, linguistic failure is primarily failure in the English language.
It would seem that since the English language occupies a pride of place in educational, political and social settings, and is taught more regularly than other subjects in the primary and post-primary schools, students should display high degree of proficiency in it at the internal and external examinations. But this is not the case. In spite of this important and pervading influence of the English language, performance in it at the Senior School Certificate Examination is poor (WAEC, 2005). The Chief Examiners’ Report (WAEC, 2005) reported that despite the fact that the English language questions were well within the learning experiences of the candidates, most candidates still performed poorly. Lending support to this, Uwadiae, quoted in Financial Standard on-line newspaper of December 2, 2008, reported that from available examination statistics from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the May/June 2008 WASSCE result was the worst performance in the last seven years, as over 80 percent of the candidates did not make credit in English language and mathematics. Uwadiae attributed this poor performance to lack of adequate preparation, shortage of qualified teachers, inadequate teaching materials, poor school environment, inability to understand questions requiring high level thinking and shallow, poor answers to questions due to poor command of the English language. Particularly, the mass failure in English language is attributable to poor grounding in the four major language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The acquisition of these skills is very expedient for the total language development and, by extension, language performance of any person.
The listening skill ushers in other language skills. As children listen to members of their immediate environment, they imitate their speech habits which gradually build up until they are able to use their first language correctly. Okonkwo (1998) maintains that listening is a prerequisite for speaking.
On the other hand, speech is a skill which is fundamental to language, for according to Mgbodile (1999), “Every normal human being needs to communicate with his fellow human beings through speaking and any person who is incapable of this is regarded as having a natural speech defect.” p.22.
But not all people have literacy skills of reading and writing. Azikiwe (1998) opines that every language has a spoken form, but some languages do not have written forms, indicating the supremacy of the speaking skills.
Reading is the third in the order of language skills. It is seen by Mgbodile (1999) as the ability to interpret written or printed words and to make meaning out of them. He further points out that reading is an important language skill because through it human beings are able to unlock the world’s treasures of knowledge thereby participating in world’s universal culture and civilization.
The writing skill is the last in the order of language skills. According to Uzoegwu (2004) it is a means of expressing one’s feelings and thoughts with the aid of appropriate graphic symbols that are acceptable to the target language. Writing is a higher-order skill (Mgbodile, 1999). Unlike listening and speaking which can be informally learnt, writing must be formally taught.
In all, speech stands as the primus interpares among other language skills since language is essentially speech. Being the primary mode of language, according to Wallwork (1985), speech must be given a pride of place in any language programme. At the secondary school level correct speech habits are taught as the oral English segment of English language.
At a time, oral English was relegated to the background. This continued to be the case until D.W. Grieve’s review of the English examination syllabus in 1964. Grieve, quoted in Ezeadichie (1995) categorically stated. “As for compulsory oral tests, it may be said right away that no examination in English language which does not include an oral test as an integral part of the examination can really be regarded as adequate.” p.4. This report increased people’s interest in oral English. However, oral English continued to be optional at the senior school certificate examinations in Nigeria, where it was offered as a subject, separate from English language. It was only in 1987 that it was made a compulsory part of the English language paper for the teacher-training colleges in Nigeria and later at the West African School Certificate Examination (Ezeadichie, 1995).
The main aim of the spoken English syllabus at the secondary school level as enunciated by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (1985) is to “provide systematic training towards the acquisition of speech skills which will enable the learners to communicate intelligibly in English in addition to being able to listen to and understand the spoken English of other speakers of the language.” p.4. In order to attain this broad objective, the English language curriculum by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (1985) intends to achieve among others the specific aim of making students “understand the stress patterns of English… as an inherent feature of the pronunciation of English and also in terms of its contrastive use to provide information in some aspects of grammar and meaning in English.” p.4.
Provision for the teaching and learning as well as testing of stress is made by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in their syllabuses. For example, at the West African Senior School Certificate Examination conducted by WAEC and the Senior School Certificate Examination organized by NECO, stress is tested as part of the oral English paper where it takes fifteen out of the sixty questions of the oral English paper. Candidates are expected to recognize where the primary stress falls on words and answer questions on emphatic stress. Secondary stress and sentence stress from personal observation are not tested.
Stress, according to Lamidi (2003), is the degree of prominence that is given to a syllable. Syllable as used here is the phonological division of a word, such that each division contains one vowel sound and an optional consonant sound. It is according to Lamidi (2003) “a unit of utterance which is produced with one chest pulse.” p. 105. Chest pulse or breath-pulse is referred to by Ngwu (2003) as the quantity of sound that can be produced at one puff of air during the pronunciation of a word. He explains further that during the pronunciation of a word, the air rushes out of the mouth in bits, each of which represents one syllable. The following words are divided according to the syllables they have, that is, according to the number of chest pulses used in producing them.
