INFLUENCE OF CLASS-SIZE ON TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU EDUCATIONAL ZONE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

With the abolition of slave trade in Nigeria at the beginning of the 19th century, British Colonial interest shifted to agricultural production from exportation to Europe. During this period, precisely in 1842 and 1846 {2009 Britannica encyclopedia} the first missionary stations were established in Badagry (near Lagos in the South West) and Calabar (in the South-East) respectively. Then evangelism grew sporadically to produce the first generation of students who were made up of mainly children of slaves whom the village communities thought they would not miss much. As the British Colonial government felt the needs of African who were literate in English language, who would serve both trade and colonial interests, the missionary therefore in 1880s was officially ordered to teach English language in their schools. As time goes on English language became a language of concentration for reasons such as: it was financially rewarding to study English language more than any of the indigenous languages; certification became conditional upon passing English before any recognition or consideration is given. However, this development and the need to learn English as a Second Language {ESL} necessitated the establishment of the first state school in Nigeria in 1899. It is undoubtedly obvious that English language in Nigeria has an enormous importance so much that for over a century now, it has continued to enjoy the pride of place in all spheres of the nations endeavor – educational, business, communication to mention a few (Ogbonna, 2008).

English language today has gained constitutional recognition to have served as an official language and even gaining the advantage of being the First Language {L1} over the Mother Tongue {MT}. Despite all the importance and position of English language in the country’seducational system, English language still suffers set back in its output. This has been ascertained and established by various examination bodies, government, education planners and individuals. It is highly pathetic and embarrassing that a secondary school graduate could not write an error- free sentence. Some of these students are eloquent but their reading and writing are nothing to talk about (Opeola, 2007), some of this issues that can cause this set back are teachers teaching method, poor study habit of students and large class size.

Badures(2006) opined that class size is the number of students or individual in a particular classroom.He also opined that number of the students required in particular class should be below 40.Any class that has a total of 40 and above students is large class.  The effectiveness of class size on students’ achievement  and motivation, and its synchronous relation to teaching process and teachers’ workload, attitudes and motivation, is probably the  most written about but however a least explored topic in the educational field. Yet, there is no consensus definition in literature to what constitutes a large class as material developers, teachers and students in different parts of world have various perceptions of what frames large, small or ideal classes. According to Hayes (2007) there is no numerical determination of what shape a large class as teachers’ perceptions of large classes differs from one context to another.

Badures  (2006) believed that regardless of the number of students in a class, it is a teachers’ perceptions towards the class size in a certain context with particular tools and facilities which are provided that make classes either small or large. Hence, we can say that large classes are those with a specific number of students that teachers cannot handle and resources are not enough to facilitate the teaching and learning process and can pose insurmountable problems for both teachers and students. Mulryan-Kyne (2010) also shares that view and points to a large class as “a class that is too large for effective teaching to occur”. Brown (2001), on the other hand, believed that an ideal class should not exceed 12 students. In another word, a class should be big enough to offer variation and allow interaction and small enough to provide students with opportunities for participating and receiving individual attention.

Finn(2003) revealed that class size has great effects on students’ social and academic involvement in the class and on the teachers’ personality as well. That is to say that students in small classes, on contrary to their peers in large ones, are always under pressure to participate in class activities as “they are on the frying line”, by being more visible to the teacher and may be called upon at any time to answer questions or to participate in a class activity” (page. 346). On a similar view, Resnick (2003) claimed that smaller classes elevate students’ achievement as teachers in such context pay greater attention to each and every student, leaving students with no time to either be destructive or distracted by any means. Consequently, students in small classes encounter continuous pressure to engage in various activities and become active class. On a similar view, Normore and Ilon (2006) conclude that classes of a small size positively influence the teaching process as they encourage students and teacher engagement, allow students to be more cognitively engaged, offer ample time for teachers to cover the whole materials and provide safe school environment with fewer misbehaved students.

Al- Jarf’s (2006) opined that some teachers hold negative views against large classes as they believe having many students in one class can cause some problems that affect them and their students. Some commonly comments heard by teachers are: there is no communication, the class is out of control, lack of individual attention and difficult to set effective group activities. Other teachers always emphasize that it is impossible to concentrate on all students and therefore not enough reinforcement will be made to encourage all to participate in different activities. Participants in Al- Jarf’s (2006) study commented that “due to the size of the class they do not have enough time to pay attention to each student or give every student a chance to speak and participate” (Kennedy, 2006). In words, such context makes some students, especially the shy or weak ones to be neglected or left behind. Kennedy & Kennedy (2006) shared similar view as they believed it is difficult to overcome all of what occur in class when the number of students exceeds a certain limit.

On the contrary, teachers in small classes are able to pay great attention to their students and the benefit from the presented activities is considered to be high. From that, we can say that it is abundantly evident that English teachers encounter great challenges when teaching large classes as they encounter difficulties in knowing all students in the class, having time for all individuals or presenting effective activities and therefore many students, especially the weak ones, tend to lose concentration. Another problem which is borne out in the words of the teachers, and hinders the learning process in large classes is identifying and controlling students who tend to distract their classmates from concentrating on the lesson.

Lazear (2003) assumed that if a student misbehaves and begins disturbing the class, the teacher has to attend the disturbance and control the noise. Such action from one student or more in a large class will block the learning of that moment and demolish the capability of others to learn. Pedder (2003) confirms: in larger classes, more time is needed for non-academic activities related to administrative and organizational procedures and to the management and control of discipline. Reductions in the quantity of learning opportunities constrain teachers from achieving the necessary pace, depth and breadth of curriculum coverage as class size increases (Pedder, 2007). Noise level of some students is also considered to be a problematic issue as it will produce disturbance and prevent their classmates from learning. AL-Jarf (2006) recorded that “large class sizes inhibit small group activities and individualized instruction, because of the noise level and lack of space in the classroom). Admittedly, some researchers have found that classroom noise is a result of students’ boredom, vague instructions of activities presented in class and teachers’ low voice (Harmer, 2000; Lacastro, 2001 and Zhang, 2008).