Patterns of Classroom Language of Anglophone Cameroon Secondary School Teachers of English as a Second Language
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Date
1987-04
Authors
Ayuk, E.M
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Publisher
University of Lagos
Abstract
This study attempts to identify, analyze and describe the classroom oral discourse of trained ESL teachers and their students on the one hand, and that of untrained ESL teachers and the students they teach on the other hand. It was hypothesized that there will be no significant difference in the classroom oral performance of trained and untrained teachers of English as a second language in the first three forms of Anglophone Cameroon secondary schools. But the results of this investigation show that trained teachers and their students controlled a higher level of English proficiency in classroom discourse and employed a wider range of structural patterns than untrained teachers and their students respectively. A total of 32 ESL teachers, 18 trained and 14 untrained, were observed in 11 schools in the South West Province over a period of three months, during which 76 lessons were tape recorded. The 18 trained teachers were drawn, six each from Forms one, Two and Three, while the 14 untrained ESL teachers were drawn from Forms one Two and Three in the ratio 5: 6: 3 respectively. Cameroon's multilingual setting which necessitated her adoption of a national English-French bilingual language policy constitutes the sociolinguistic background for this study. The acquisition of English as a second language in co-official status with French in the Educational system of a country with more than 285 indigenous languages presents serius problems for language pedagogy research. The study has therefore provided an update on review of research literature in classroom language in general, and English as a second language process studies in particular. The picture that emerges is one where in there has been a shift in focus from technique to process with the teacher's classroom talk input as a crucial variable for learning to occur. The comparison undertaken of the ESL classroom discourse of trained and untrained teachers, with teachers featuring as the vital source of the linguistic input reflects this current concern of research in classroom learning teaching processes. The main aims of the investigation that have, to a large extent, influenced the research design and orientation adopted here are summarized as:- 1. identification, analyses and description of the range and frequency of occurrence of basic English structural patterns. 2. identification and description of each of the structural patterns found in the 64 lessons that constitute the language corpora; 3. examination of the effect of course book material, teaching technique and organizational procedure on students' use of the identified patterns of English structure; and 4. identification and the assessment of the influence of course book material, presentation techniques and organization of learning groups on interaction patterns in the same language sample. The research methodology adopted consisted of (1) questionnaire elicitation of teachers' performance in classroom ESL activities and students' attitudes to these activities; (2) administration of students' achievement tests in listening comprehension skills and (3) tape recording of 76 actual english lessons for the analysis of classroom discourse. Results obtained from the analysis of students' attitude to English language activities, using the t-tests statistical techniques indicated the following trends: (1) Untrained teachers' students performed just as well as their counterparts taught by trained teachers in the Likert-format attitude scale; (2) one kind of English classroom activity does not seems to generate more positive students' attitude to English language learning than another; (3) professional training has no influence on the formation of positive attitude in students toward English language activities. Similarly, the most important findings from the analysis of teachers' performance in the language activities surveyed are: (1) untrained teachers performed just as highly as their trained colleagues in the 6 dimensional activities sampled; (2) lowest mean scores were obtained by trained and untrained teachers in functional/learning resources activities; (3) professional training does not emerge as a determining factor of teachers' performance in the six activity domains of language. Students' achievement tests I and II were subejcted to the analysis of covariance (ANOVA) test and the following results were yielded: (1) students taught by trained teachers performed significantly better than untrained teachers' students' in the tests; (2) the teacher characteristic of professional certification seemed to be a good discriminator of students' achievement gains. The analyses of classroom discourse were based on teachers and students' use of six basic English structural patterns, and four sentence types and their functions (i.e. their illocutionary force). The four sentence types are the passive, the declarative, the interrogative, and the imperative whose functions range from statements, assertions, directives, instructions, questions etc. the six basic English structural patterns are: 1. NPV (intransitive) 2. NP1 V (transitive) NP2 (X) 3. NP1 V (transitive) NP2 (X) 4. NP1 V (transitive) NP2 NP3 5. NP V (linking (X) 6. EXPLETIVE BE NP
81 The detailed analysis of the 64 lessons recorded, employing Lobans' (1963) method of analysis yielded significant results. Summations of the frequency of occurrence of each of the patterns and sentence types were obtained and t-tests procedures were employed to facilitate a comparison of subjects' means. Consequently, the global evidence on teachers' and students' use of spoken discourse during ESL lessons indicated the following trends: 1. Trained teachers and their students produced more utterances of the structural patterns 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 types than untrained teachers and their students. 2. Although overall figures showed that trained teachers and their students were superior to untrained teachers and their students they teach in use of sentence pattern 4, untrained teachers' students used more utterance of this pattern than trained teachers' students. 3. Considerably fewer utterances of pattern 5 type were employed by teachers and students in both groups. 4. A significant difference was found between trained teachers and their students' use of structural pattern 1, and untrained teachers and their students' use. 5. Except for the use of type 1 pattern, the differences between trained teachers and their students and untrained teachers and their students in the use of five remaining structural patterns were not significant. 6. Trained teachers who employed more interrogative, declarative and imperative sentence types, interacted more during lessons than their untrained counterparts.
7. Trained teachers and their students interacted more during ESL lessons than untrained teachers and the students they teach. In the light of these findings, it was concluded that trained teachers and their students were more fluent language users while employing a wider range of structural pattersn than untrained teachers and their students. Furthermore, course book material, the teacher's instructional technique and organization of teaching were all found to influence the amount and quality of discourse generated by teachers and students during ESL lessons, which tended to be restricted. Finally, implications for teacher training programmes in preparation of ESL teachers in Cameroon and for further research are outlined and recommendations suggested. The most important of these is that this particular study draws attention to the need for further micro-research investigations of the relationships between English grammar, the structure of lesson's discourse and the effective strategies as well as the methodology of ESL classroom learning and teaching processes. Thus, given the communicative potentials of basic structural patterns and sentence types such as declarative, interrogative, imperative and declarative classroom discourse, the results of such studies should be incorporated into the ESL programme for trainee teachers. There is no gain saying that such input data from teacher's and students' language use during ESL lessons should provide the framework for evaluation and writing of ESL course books, considering their overriding effect on classroom language acquisition.
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Keywords
English Teachers , Anglophone , Classroom Teaching , Sociolinguistic
Citation
Ayuk, E.M (1987) Patterns of Classroom Language of Anglophone Cameroon Secondary School Teachers of English as a Second Language. University of Lagos School of Postgraduate Studies Phd Curriculum Studies Thesis and Dissertation Abstracts, 544p.