Role of parents in literature education among secondary school students: Poetic appreciation as focus (original) (raw)
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Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2013
The paper examines the teacher factor in the development of poetic appreciation skills among Senior Secondary School (SSS) students. A questionnaire was administered and data collected from two secondary schools in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The data is analysed using mean average, frequency count, column chart, and rank scale. The major finding is that the teacher is a significant factor in the development of Senior Secondary School students' poetry appreciation proficiency. Moreover, the effect of book scarcity, which could be severe due to the current economic problems worldwide, could be mitigated through the teacher's creativity. A reconsideration of curriculum choices in terms of recommended poetry texts to reflect familiar African cultural products before the unfamiliar European ones is also advocated.
A RESEARCH ON THE LEVEL OF APPRECIATION OF THE SELECTED AFRICAN POETRY AT THE SECONDARY SCHOOL LEVEL
Poetry has, for a long time, been regarded as difficult; and there has been evidence of teacher and student efforts in appreciation to support the belief. As a genre of literature, it has been side-tracked and little effort has been made for its reconsideration as a genre that can be enjoyed. While students blame teachers for not giving them enough support to understand the genre fully, teachers have also blamed students for not putting in enough efforts to study and understand the genre. African poetry has been the more critical case because it communicates the identity of the learner. This study examines the extent to which both teachers and students appreciate poetry and the efforts both parties make to enjoy and understand the genre. It uses as a case study, the selected African poetry at the Senior High School level which is the students’ first real encounter with elective literature and poetry. The study made use of the pragmatic approach to data collection. With the qualitative approach, a number of students and teachers from four selected schools were interviewed about their efforts towards the appreciation of poetry. There was also group discussions with the students. Answered scripts from Mock Exams were also collected and analyzed to establish the issues that the students face in answering questions on poetry. The findings from these analyses formed the basis of the study, aimed at assessing whether the students and teachers willingly chose literature or whether they were forced into choosing it, whether their expectations from poetry had been met, and the specific difficulties they faced with the genre. At the end of the study, the findings revealed that most students liked literature but disliked poetry. On the other hand, 1 out of 4 teachers did not enjoy teaching poetry. The findings of the research point to an important trend about how the selected African poems in the WASSCE syllabus have been appreciated by teachers and pupils at the Senior High School level. It is clear that the level of appreciation has not been up to standard. While teachers have blamed their pupils for not making poetry lessons interesting and effective, pupils have also blamed their teachers for the same reasons. We also find that the thematic and stylistic nature of the poems have contributed significantly to the low level of appreciation. Another contribution to the problem is the lack of a standard for the judgment of students as weak or strong in the subject.
This study investigates the attitudes of secondary school students towards reading literary texts in the Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State. The survey research design was used, and four public secondary schools were randomly selected. A total of 200 SSII students who were studying literature in English were randomly selected from these schools. The research instrument used was the Students' Attitude to Reading of Literary Texts Questionnaire (r=.79). Descriptive statistics such as frequency count, percentage scores, mean, and standard deviation, and inferential statistics such as t-test at the 0.05 level of significance were used to analyze the data. The study found that the students had a weighted mean of 2.74, which was greater than the threshold. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between male and female students in their attitudes towards text possession (t (197) = .180; p=.857>.05; Mean Difference = .19701) or their attitudes towards reading (t (196) =-.014; p=.989>.05; Mean Difference =-.01164). Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that teachers of literature-in-English should encourage students to develop a positive attitude towards reading literary texts. Teachers should adopt methods that will enhance students' positive attitudes towards reading literary texts, and students should be encouraged to read all recommended literary texts. Additionally, parents should purchase all recommended literary texts for their children and encourage them to develop a positive attitude towards reading these texts.
English Language Learning and Development of Teen Poetry in Contemporary Nigeria
Research on humanities and social sciences, 2017
It is a known fact that English Language is Nigeria’s official language. As such, it is the language of administration, banking, commerce, education, inter-cultural interaction and a host of other sectors. It is strong in education in that it is the language of teaching and learning at all levels of education, including the secondary school (level) where we have the bulk of teenagers. In most schools in the country, their ability to express themselves in poetic form has developed poetry writing in Nigeria to a level that is fast becoming comparable to that of experienced adult poets. Adopting the conventional literary analysis method, the paper examines several poems in Beyond Limits and discovers that the teen poets in Nigeria have developed appreciably contemporary themes of poverty, environmental degradation, man’s inhumanity to man, patriotism, hopelessness as well as myriad of others which they handle with cheering dexterity. The poems are rich in commendable musicality, impres...
Children literature remains the focus of discussions among those concerned with the positive socialisation of children within the African society. However, how it can serve for the socialisation of children by the home has not been clearly understood. This paper discusses the tangible role children literature can play in the socialisation process. It specifically focuses on the way the absentee parent(s) can effectively use children literature as a tool of child training. It outlined the nature of children literature as it exists in the Nigerian society. It identified some important techniques such as didactism, journey motif, child abuse, characterisation, etc. which writers use to convey their messages in Nigerian children literature. It identified how writers use aesthetics to attract, keep and teach children the needed morality in the society. It concludes by outlining the way that the teacher/parent can effectively bring to life children literature to youngsters and thus engage it for positive socialisation of children within the African social milieu.
Towards Effective Values of Teaching Literature to Secondary School Students
This study aims to investigate the significant role of literature teaching on secondary school students who study English as a foreign language. The subjects of the study consisted of (100) secondary school students(females) .The experiment took place in Omdurman area. The students were chosen from two Sudanese secondary schools in the same area for the academic year 2015/2016. (50) Students out of (100) studied literature for more than six years and the rest (50) students didn't study any literary texts for the same period. A questionnaire was distributed to (30) English teachers, a student test was given to secondary school students and (10) English directors were interviewed for data collection. A statistical analysis was carried out to find out the relation between literature teaching and its role in promoting the students' performance. The data of the study was analyzed by using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). The findings of the study indicated that, there is a positive, statistical significant relation between the study of literature and the standard of the students in English. On the other hand, the students who studied literature scored high marks in a test that contained the same questions and took the same time for both students, compared with those students who didn't study any literary text. That is to say, Literature teaching, affects positively in the acquisition of English language. The study concluded with some recommendations offered to teachers of English language, administrations of secondary schools and for designers of English curricula in order to encourage students to better learning of English through the teaching of literature.
Literature-in-English is a subject offered in the secondary schools which contributes to intelligent thinking. It is a means of propagating the understanding of culture and tradition. It facilitates learning the English language and cultivating a reading culture. Classroom observation and interaction with students have shown that the number of students offering the subject is on the decline. This paper examined the present status of teaching and learning of literature-in-English, that is, the reasons for enrolment decline, how the subject is taught and benefits of studying it. Fifty (50) teachers and a hundred (100) students were used as samples. Two researcher- designed questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students, were used to gather data in eleven randomly selected secondary schools. Frequency counts and percentages were used to analyse data gathered. Findings indicated among others that high cost of texts, lack of uniformity in set books by WAEC and NECO and lack of interest by students contribute to decline in enrolment. The paper recommended measures that could enhance teaching and learning as well as improve students’ enrolment. Keywords: Literature-in-English, enrolment, decline, teaching, learning.
This paper examined the problems associated with teaching English Language using Literature texts in Makurdi Metropolis of Benue State, Nigeria. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Three research questions were asked and 2 hypotheses formulated. Population for the study comprised of all teachers of Literature and English Language in Secondary Schools in Makurdi metropolis. Findings of the study revealed that Literature has great impact on the study of English Language, but that there are problems that hinder the full realization of the study of language through literature (P = 0.10 < 1.66). The study concluded that the problems can be surmounted. It was recommended that language teachers should attend training, workshops, and seminars, in order to up-grade their knowledge of language teaching through the use of literary texts.
Challenges of Teaching Literature-in-English in Secondary Schools in Borno and Yobe, Nigeria
InternationalJournal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT)
This paper investigates challenges of teaching Literature-in-English in secondary schools within Yobe and Borno states in northeastern Nigeria, and the impact this has on university admission requirements. A core requisite for admissions into B.A English and LL.B. in all Nigerian universities is an O' level credit pass in SSCE or its equivalent in Literature-in-English. This poses a major challenge to many candidates from Yobe and Borno States due to either the non-teaching or the inability of the students to pass with the required credit in the end of secondary school examinations. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the paper investigates reasons that bring about these problems within the period 2009-2019. Quantitative and qualitative approaches, through questionnaires and interviews, and Consensus Workshop, through Focus Group Discussion (FGD), were adopted to gather the data. The paper finds and concludes that socio-cultural factors, unavailability of effective and specialist teachers and gender issues were the major reasons for the non-teaching of the subject and the failure of students in public secondary schools to pass with credit in the two states. The paper recommends amenable measures to be taken to address these problems and challenges.