THE ROLE OF THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN THE TEACHING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL
ABSTRACT
People have
developed interest in the use of television and radio as powerful and effective
media of communication and mobilization. This writer therefore finds it
necessary to examine the progress of electronic media in education development.
The research was carried out in five schools in Akure South Local Government
Area of Ondo State.The result was to make possible recommendation on the use of
electronic media in schools in the local government under study. The instrument
of study used to collect data were questionnaires for teachers and students.
The method used by the researcher is obtaining and applied within the
reasonableness of the prevailing conditions.The result of these findings reveals
the major role of electronics in the teaching of English language. Some of the
roles played by electronic media are: it facilitates learning, it makes
students learn better in a relax atmosphere and it makes classroom a place of
interpretation and information.
Therefore,
government should provide electronic media for all secondary schools in their
local government area. The teachers in the area should highlight the programmes
in classroom discussions and encourage them to make it a point of duty for students
to watch and listen to such programmes.
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CHAPTER ONE
Background of the Study
An
effective language teacher must serve as a model for his students to imitate.
To be a good model, a teacher must be well at home in language skills. A
language teacher especially a second or foreign language teacher who possesses
very little knowledge of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills as
well as grammar of the language he is teaching will eventually transmit quite
serious errors to his listeners.
In
an attempt to solve this problem of teaching and learning of the English
language in schools generally and in senior secondary schools in Akure South
Local Government Area, electronic media which refers to the usage of phenomena
of electrons as in radio and televisions is suggested as a way of improving the
teaching of English language in senior secondary schools since it is even
inclusive in their syllabus.
The
importance of the English language and the role it plays in national unity
cannot be over emphasized. The language is one of the heritages left behind in
Nigeria by our colonial administration and since independence it has been a
sort of limited lingua franca among educated persons in Nigeria.
The
English language has acquired the status of an official language in Nigeria.
The language among different ethnic groups in Nigeria, but it is used as a
medium of communication among literates of different of linguistic ethnic groups.
Through the use of the English language, an Hausa man could discuss freely with
a Yoruba man and ditto the Igbo man.
It
is required of all students to be proficient in the English language and is
also a vital requirement for the award of certificate and securing admission to
higher institutions. For a longtime, there has been poor performance of students
in the subjects which could be traced to many factors such as exposure to poor
standard of the language, lack of professionally trained English language
teachers, non- availability of textbooks and lack of teaching- learning aids.
Students cannot write legibly and speak fluently as expected. In fact most of
the school leavers are bedridden in modern world of fluent communication. This
is also one of the reasons for our students’ poor performance at higher
institutions.
The
continuous creation of state in Nigeria has given room to rapid increase in the
numbers of television and radio stations. Many researches are being carried out
in some states of Nigeria to know the educational effect of mass media in our
society at large.
This
study was carried out to know the extent to which television and radio
influence the teaching of English language in senior secondary schools in Akure
South Local Government Area of Ondo State.
However,
the development of mass media television and radio has contributed in no small
way to the teaching of the English language and most of the students spend a
greater percentage of their time listening to radio broadcasting and watching
television programmes.
These
news media are designed to entertain and broaden people’s outlook and offer new
ways of learning and self expression. In essence, the importance of mass media
such as television and radio to the teaching of English language cannot be
underscored since students’ academic performance is largely dependent on the
amount of resources made available for teaching the subject.
Statement of the Problem
Education
is in a period of change and the traditional method of teaching is being
questioned and re-examined. The universal surge of progress of the second half
of the 20th century offers to education an inspiring challenge. This
had led to the invention of many technological media devices and systems that
appear to offer major contributions to the effectiveness and efficiency of
educational instructions. Examples of these innovations are motion pictures,
film strips, slid projector programme learning, opaque projector and so on.
This
study is designed to carry out a research in Akure South Local Government Area
of Ondo State, using radio and television stations so as to find out:
1. Whether there are similarities or
dissimilarities between the roles radio and television played in other states
where a similar research has been carried out.
2. Whether there are enough
instructional materials in schools.
3. Whether the students’ learning ability
is increased with the aid of electronic media.
4. Whether if formality is reduced in
the atmosphere of learning, learning can be facilitated.
5. Whether the students are exposed to
new ideas and mysteries.
Research Questions
Answers
were sought to the following questions:
i.
Are
electronic materials such as radio and television sets available in your school?
ii.
Do
electronic media such as radio and television facilitate learning?
iii.
Do
the students learn better in the classroom or in a relaxed atmosphere watching
television?
iv.
How
do the teachers of the English language make the classroom through the
electronic media a place of interpretation of information and creation of
reality?
v.
Do
the students watch educational programmes?
Purpose of the Study
The
purpose of this study was to find out the extent to which television and radio
facilitated the teaching of the English language in the senior secondary
schools in Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State.
This
means that television and radio programmes should have positive effect on both
teaching and learning of English language since the students who are exposed to
the use of such instructional programmes feel free and learn better because the
setting is more like an out of school situation in which the atmosphere is formal.
Nowadays, the interest developed towards the use of television and radio
programmes is high.
Hence
the need to examine the impact of the media on education and development. The
study therefore was intended to find out how teaching and learning of the
English language could be facilitated through television and radio. It was also
designed to find out the extent to which they had gone in helping the students
in the learning of the English language.
It
would assess the good and bad effects of these programmes and suggest possible
ways of improving the programmes.
Significance of the Study
It
is hoped that the finding of the study will create the necessary awareness for
the teachers of English so that they will see the need to incorporate what the
learners learn through television and radio programmes into the school curriculum
to arouse the students’ interest.
It
is hoped that it will enable the media stations to know the effectives of their
transmission and the students to understand how they could learn English
language to understand meaningful and realistic ways through a combination of
vision and sound and thereby improve on it. It is also hoped that the study
will be a contribution to knowledge.
Delimitation of the study
This
study was restricted to selected senior secondary schools in Akure South Local
Government Area of Ondo States. The schools were randomly selected to represent
all the schools in the whole of Akure South Local Government. The media
stations were confined to N.T.A and O.S.R.C, all in Ondo State because their
transmission is well received in parts of the state.
C
