Thursday, August 12, 2010

problem of teaching and leaning english language

INTRODUCTION
We are not, however, saying that there is no sufficient written material on modern and techniques of teaching English as a second language. The point is that, it is extremely difficult to get a book that is satisfaction in most aspect of teaching English. What is written by native users of English and in some cases, in a way that is not easily digestible by our teacher trainees especially in Grade II training colleges. But the most cogent point is that, even the good textbooks or modern English methodology, do not contain simple lessons to illustrate in concrete from the modern view and techniques. Since there is no sample lesson provided on each, important topic treated in the book will certainly make teaching method of English problem and the preparation of lesson notes before coming down to teach in the class.

It can as well provide clues to many and varying teaching problems arising from English teaching and learning situation in Secondary School.

Unconscientiously
It is claiming too much to say that the teaching of English as a second language is the most complex and the most arduous task for teachers to undertake, but those who conscientiously and diligently examine the varying and elusive aspects of the teaching of English in West Africa, have come to the unavoidable realization that, if there is any subject that requires a scientific and pragmatic approach from teaching, it is from English. so without being conscientiously, diligent, the teacher still have problem in teaching English.

UNSKILLED TEACHER
The numbers of unskilled teachers of English in West Africa is still very large and discouragingly alarming. It is not only their unawareness of modern techniques, but also their mistaken confidence in their own effectiveness which militate against their improvement. The situation calls for a properly organized training programme sponsored by the government of West Africa, with the clear aim of encouraging the spread of modern English teaching methods. The urgency of this situation can be quickly realized when one considers the importance of competence in English to a person’s income and social prestige in a country like Nigeria. If not so, the problem will still be realized.

STUDIED MACHINERY IN TEACHING ENGLISH
If the governments of West Africa give the teaching of English a comprehensive view and take the size of its intricacy a really studied machinery will have to be set in motion to train teachers according to the modern methods and reoriented and encourage in a positive way the successful teacher of English. Teachers of English need more enlightened devotion and unalloyed endeavoured than others, because in a country like Nigeria where ones stature; size of earning and social prestige, depend almost entirely on one’s competence in English, the teaching of English should now be consigned to the hands or mediocre.

If the teacher in English is not conscious of whatever he is teaching, mentally and morally to the role he has to play in the role of English lesson, then the teacher will face problems.

They might contact this problem if there is no correlation between the achievement in English literature and English language performance in English language could be much better if teachers of English do not make a proper use of the English literature lesson and did practice shallow literature works serve as a problem of practicing the English language and the teacher can not teach effectively because the level of completeness and mastering of the language cannot be attend by the child. All these are determined by his ability to express his feelings, experiences and reaction which arises from situation or imagery which will be defeated.

QUESTIONING AND ALARTNESS
The teacher to be incompetence of his lesson, he does not use all his resources and skills to involve the child. In such situation, which make him live experience to others and shared their feelings in the oral work that is always so stimulated, the child finds it difficult to organize his taught and idea and to express in word meaning all kinds. If the teacher does not use the questioning – and – discussion method with alertness, confidence and skills, there will be still problems of teaching English language in JS1.

GRAMMATICAL PATTERN IN TEACHING ENGLISH
The teacher to give examples of correct grammatical pattern, sentence structures which serves very well as modules for imitation. The student will find it very difficult to understand the lesson and the class will be boring.

Teaching of English language is usually made too abstract and too mechanical to profit the teacher and students, but many at times the teacher will be unprepared by entering the class to teach, wasted time, and strained, thinking that he has succeeded in teaching the English, not knowing that, he has done nothing because he has not taken the lesson to the end and the subject himself unrewardingly, mental and physical strain and stress in defining things, resolving linguistic intricacies. At the close of the lesson, he mistakenly feels he has done a good job, but in testing exercise would make the scale falls out in his eyes because of inability to teach and to evaluate the student.

If a teacher fails to be furnished with new ideas about the teaching of language he cannot participate very well, he would still have problems of teaching English language in Junior Secondary school.

USES OF REGISTER
The teacher experience the teaching of English in secondary school if the teacher chooses the lexis, registers, grammatical pattern and sentence structure which he wants the students to learn and coming across some uses of the pattern and registers which he wants to teach, he cannot establish in a linguistic repertoire of the students, he will still have problems in English teaching.

Moreover, such situation would not be easy to handle if they are based on a story, the student read as a part of silent reading or comprehension exercise programme for example, if a class has read the passage and the registers they have come across in the passage would not be properly mastered and they would be wondering in their mind what it means, and it will quickly erase from their brain.

In addition to the problems, the idioms found in the passage; the teacher may overlook them and the student may end up in a confuse state. However, the teacher may end up telling the student to act for him to observe because he did not read literature and the student will become a teacher because he has ignored his roles. By so doing, the weak ones will continue to be frustrated.

RESOURCEFULNESS
If the teacher does not require resourcefulness, clear imagination and skill handling, not active, unfailing spirit of perseverance, the teaching surely flag and fall flat. These usually make the problem of situational language teaching very complex and seeming impossible to resolve.

THE FOUR CONCENTRIC SPHERES OF LAGUAGE
Mr. F. L. Bollows clearly shows in his book the problems of language teaching how the teacher fails to put the student, at the centre of the sphere which the first sphere consist of what the teacher suppose to have it available in the classroom for the students to see, touch, feel or hear. Any object which can be seen through the classroom window comes within this sphere whereby the teachers fails to do it, becomes the problem in teaching and also the lesson will not be familiar to the students’ attention which also create problem in teaching.

THE SECOND SPHERE
The teacher uses what the student does not seen in the class, heard, touch and feel before nor acknowledge in their life time to teach the students, there must be a problems in teaching.

THE THIRD SPHERE
It calls for the use of imagination. The events, incident and scene which the students have not directly experience are brought to their imaginative eyes through pictures, drawings, dramatizations, films and films strips and other kinds of visual aids.

THE FOURTH SPHERE
It consist of written materials, if the teacher does not follow consequentially to which the student are expose in reading books and making summaries or in doing written comprehension exercises and so on, the child put in this sphere to make use of the skills and mastery of the language which he has acquired in working through the first, second, and third sphere will find it difficult to teach.

THE CHILD IN RELATION TO THE ENGLISH PROGRAMME
The problems of teaching modern language which is the second language calls for lack of personal relationship between the teacher and the student which calls for division in the class, no interaction, no essential to satisfactory, no encouraging classroom result and any other subjects in the curriculum, the teacher will be frustrated in his studies and he will be unpleasant, no personality, no humility, failing, lack of tolerant, no perseverance and no regards for worthless classroom relationship.
It is therefore, the matter of prime important that teachers of English should bear in mind of what Margaret Hoffman called the 3 AS – Affecting, Acceptance and Achievement.

INABILITY TO ATTEND TO QUESTIONS
Infact, unsuccessful English teachers does his daily work not considering taught and energy and not minding the aim. Teacher develops problems by not recognizing a student of 10 – 13 years that are eager to know English as an asset. They feel that the student will be disgracing him by asking questions in which the teacher cannot answer, and with that, the teacher would be forceful to tarnish the purposefulness and enthusiasm in operating English programme.

The child and the mother-tongue
It appears many teachers who are influence by the mother-tongue in which they can not pronounce things fluently, expression especially in the present of the student, the teacher may mean another word but the student may interpret to be another word that also brings problems.

ADVANTAGES OF COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH
P. Gurrey says in teaching English as A. Foreign language if the teacher has been able to teach the students English correctly he will be a potential correct language user. The skill of speaking correctly and fluently, of reading, intelligently and of writing clearly and precisely, in all cases with grammatical and structure correctly are not easy to acquire.

THE PROBLEM OF INTONATION
Definitely, the problems of intonation and the use of rhythm, stress and pause in English require special attention because they constitute major, distinctive features of the language which can not be accommodated with those of mother tongue, so the teacher neglect it role and the student will be confused.

TEACHING ENGLISH BY DIRECT METHOD
The problems that some teachers are having are the use of direct method in teaching English especially, when English is introduced at a time when the child is ripe for it. Problems arise only when there is need to explain or define the meaning of a word, an expression or an item in English.

Serious difficulty arises when dealing with abstract items whose meaning cannot be given as described in the two previous paragraphs. If such abstract idea can not be explained by creating context either how far the teacher can violet the prohibition of the use of mother tongue in teaching a foreign language by direct method may poses an interested question in which the teacher finds difficult to answer the question.

THE USE OF PIDGIN LANGUAGE
The use of pidgin language which is the third language can create problems to the teacher while trying to teach the student because it has diffuse into the brain and the teacher will find it difficult to explain in English without using pidgin.

The teacher found the teaching difficult because the teacher did not do speech making work records.

LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS AND THEIR USES.
The teacher found it difficult because of continuous usage of old fashioned language textbooks is the foreign background of their contact by the time the oxford English course for secondary schools by H. B. Drake and recall the uphill task of teaching children from unsophisticated humus around Ughehi in Midwestern state about London snow characteristics of autumn and winter seasons, dry and abstract theme, like philosopher and soldier, or out-landish subjects about so create and so on. Incase the pictures were attach to the textbook, the teacher would have teach without problem.
So the teacher who uses such books makes unrewarding efforts, and the pupils are put in an extreme situation where they have to struggle to grab the unfamiliar idea before they strive to use the language correctly.

Some English language textBOOK
Another series called Nelson English course for secondary school by D. W. Grieve may serve some useful purpose. Book one published in 1966 would have been lavishly recommended by many eminent authorities in teaching English as second language but on several occasion we have been disappointed by the departure from modern principles of language teaching which the teacher found it very difficult unlike the living English structure by W. S. Allen and Excellence textbook on English but the problem about it is many exercises on the structure by invariable there are no examples with that, the teacher is force to create context or situation which should ensure the control use of instruction, if the teacher is not conversant, then there is a problem in teaching.

A guide to pattern and usage in English by A. S. Hornby is a good book per se. But is a quite cumbersome and should be used as an accessory to any other more practical book like the practical English series by Ogundipe and Tregidigo.

HOW TO USE THE AUTHURS QUESTION
Whenever a textbook is given to the student, it is unusual that the student will not prepare at home before coming to school but when a question is ask they all give chorus fake answer and sometimes don’t know which create problems to the teacher to teach.

ENGLISH TEACHER AND OBJECTIVE TESTING
What worries mostly is the way the teachers of English use objective test when dealing with reading passage in class as post primary school level. Apart from the aims of having; the learners use the words and expression, grammatical idiomatic pattern and sentence structure in the passage. The teacher avoided the usage and taking into consideration the possibility of fostering creative thinking during comprehensive lesson and that bring problems in teaching.

Lacking of textbook
When the teacher found out that in a class of 50 students, only 2 students have English textbook then coming in terms of reading, the teacher found out that writing the passage on the board will waste his time and as such, the teacher can use half of the school day writing on the board for the students, so lacking of textbook is a problem in teaching English language in JS1.

THE USE OF SUBSTITUTION TABLES
Another problem is not using substitution tables F. G. French English. The problem that arises is how, and at what point in a lesson, the teacher should make use of substitution table.

SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
The teacher touched his bag
Sola took my rule
I bought a pen

THE WAY FORWARD TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM
The student may be encourage to keep vocabulary notebook in which the record such words and their correct usage too so that they can refer to it to refresh their memory when the need arises. Apart from learning the meaning of the words or expressions in this way, the student ability to write the language in correct form especially in the correct spelling may improve. The teacher may train the students to use word-attack before resorting to the dictionary. This method is quite useful in finding out the meaning of a compound word whose elements may be well known to the students especially if they can get the meaning by first analytical and then a synthetic approach.

Whether the new words have been dealt with as part of the introduction to the reading passage or not, they should be presented in their written context in the course of the lesson. The student should be taught especially from the beginning of the secondary school course to learn how to read round the new or difficult words to get their meanings. Students are not likely to forget the meaning of the word or expression which is treated in its context of an episode which is thoroughly and purposefully discussed.

TECHNIQUES OF QUESTIONS
The aim of teaching this skill is to help the student acquire or develop the ability to note what is exactly express in a sentence or part of a sentence. The student should therefore, be made to note carefully, inorder to see what is being said accurately.


SUMMARY AND CONLUSION

To enjoy English through reading and understanding English, student must learn to appreciate and react favourably to the qualities and charm of English.

Timing method should be used if the story is about the sun and the moon to be read and discussed in the next lesson, then the teacher should tell the student to observe the day and the night for the next class.

The teacher should prepare the lesson by writing note of lesson appropriately and be familiar with the lesson before coming to teach.

Finally, the teachers should be trained and conduct seminars for them and also grammatical terms and syntax should be used correctly.

REFERENCES
1. A guide to pattern and usage in English
by A. S. Hornby
2. New Oxford English Course (Nigeria)
by F. G. French.
3. The techniques of language teaching by
Mr. F. L. Billows.
4. New Nelson English Course for Secondary School by
G. W. Grieve Book 1, Publish in 1966.
5. Oxford English Course for Secondary school by
H. B. Drake.
6. Day by Day English Course for western Nigeria by
Messre J. Hemming and J. A. F. Sokoja.
7. Principles and Practice of teaching English in western Africa by
N. O. Oyetunji B.A., P.G.C.E
Formally Head of Department of English,
Olunloyo College of Education Ibadan.
8. Teaching English as a foreign language by
P. Gurney.
9. The Practical English series by
Mr. Tregidgo, P. S.
10. Living English structure by
W. S. Allen

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Role of Social Organizations in Society

All human beings are social being who mostly choose to live in groups. And just because individuals must interact and interrelate with others within a society they saw themselves, there must be a formal method which allow for the procreation of life, interaction, interrelation, making decisions, producing goods, creating meaning and purpose (religion, belief, language, traditions, customs and culture) and organizing people into an orderly society.

Many social organizations have been established within the society to deal with the universal problems of ordered social life.

Some examples:
· Families in their many different organizational forms provide for the needs of both adults and children.
· Educational organizations aid in the socialization process and in the transmission of culture from generation to generation.
· Political organizations meet the needs of people by making collective decisions.
· Economic organizations meet the material needs of individuals within society.
· Aesthetic and recreational organizations meet artistic and recreational needs of people.
· Religious organizations meet the spiritual needs of people.
· All of these organizations have as one of their major purposes the organization of people so that the objectives of society can be accomplished.

The Role of the Social Contract in Society.
People find it convenient and useful to live together. In order to do this, they form societies which become nations or states.

People cannot live together successfully unless there is some basic agreement about the fundamentals of life that can be relied on to give predictability and order.

The actuality of Interdependence
In the reality of daily living, a tension exists between the needs and wants of individuals, groups of individuals, and the needs and wants of the larger society.

Social Contract
Every social grouping has a set of understandings, often tacit, which everyone in the group subscribes to.

These understandings must, in some way, define for all members of the group how they can expect to be treated and how they are expected to treat others.
Freedom and order and equality and hierarchy are four important considerations which in some way are defined and distributed by these understandings.
There are various labels for these understandings and expectations: rules in games, manners in social situations, ethics in professional matters, and laws in relation to the state.

Reconciling Individuality with Interdependence
Individuals and the contributions they can make to society vary from person to person. Society also prizes certain kind of contributions more than it does other contributions.
Traditionally it has been the custom to reward people with different levels of power, privilege, and wealth.

Decision Making within Social Organizations
The ability to make decisions and carry them out is critical to the well being of individuals within society. Without this ability people often find that they their needs and concerns are disregarded often to their detriment. Consequently there has been a great deal of competition within society to control and use power.

The sources of power are the control of:
· resources such as land, money, property, etc;
· numbers of people who are prepared to agree and support you;
· an organization which will carry out your wishes; and
· Information which allows you to know or do things.