TEACHERS STRESS AS A FACTOR CONTRIBUTING TO THE MASS FAILURE OF STUDENTS IN ORAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS
ABSTRACT
The study looked at stress as a factor influencing mass failure of students in Oral English Language at the Senior Secondary School level in Mushin, Lagos State. Some relevant and related literatures were reviewed under sub-headings in this study.
In this study, the descriptive research survey design was used to assess the respondents’ opinions. The questionnaire was used to collect the necessary information from the chosen respondents, and the subjects for this study were chosen using the stratified sampling technique.
For this study, a total of 100 (one hundred) respondents were used. They are made up of 20 (twenty) teachers and (eighty) 80 students who were chosen at random to represent the study’s population.
To guide the study, the following research questions were posed:
1. What are the most likely sources of stress for secondary school Oral English teachers?
2. To what extent does teachers’ methodology influence student failure in Oral English?
3. What is the difference in academic performance between students taught by experienced teachers and those taught by inexperienced teachers in Oral English?
4. Does stress have an impact on teachers’ work performance in schools?
5. How can an unfavorable environment lead to widespread failure of students in Oral English?
The questionnaire results were analyzed to see if they answered the research questions raised in this study. The collected data was analyzed using simple percentage frequency counts.
The findings of the research question analysis revealed that:
1) The most common causes of stress among teachers are: taking unfinished work home to finish; having negative feelings or depression about the teaching profession, work overload, sadness about delayed salaries, and so on.
2) It was also discovered that stress affects teachers’ methodology, which in turn affects students’ failure or success rates in Oral English.
3) The findings also revealed that students who were taught in Oral English by well-experienced teachers performed better academically than those who were taught in Oral English by inexperienced teachers.
4) It was also discovered that stress has an impact on teachers’ work performance at school.
5) Finally, the analysis revealed that an unfavorable environment does not favor student success in academic careers, as it does not favor the teaching and learning process in schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 The Study’s Historical Context
The issue of teacher stress has become a major concern in Teacher Education around the world. Its implications for educational quality, particularly Oral English, and, as a result, national development are obvious and critical.
According to a report by the Educational Services Advisory Committee of the Health and Safety Commission U.K. (1990), approximately 105 percent of the workforce is subjected to occupational stress. According to Cooper (1994), teaching is one of the most stressful occupations.
The issue of stress in the classroom and its consequences has been a major source of concern and investigation for teachers, teachers’ unions, and other professional organizations (Rees, 1989). According to Strausser (2000) and Johnny (2001), stress is a major behavioral psychological link to illness. Stress can cause frustration, discomfort, and ineffective performance.
According to Wynne et al (1991) and Johnstone (1993), occupational stress researchers, teaching is a stressful job. According to the researcher, this situation must have had a significant impact on the Oral English of some secondary school students and most likely influenced the poor performance of students in the final year West African Examination Certificate (WASC) as recorded over time.
Furthermore, some good English speakers believe that the quality of English spoken by most secondary school students has been deteriorating for a long time. Speaker after speaker lamented this at a conference on English Language Studies in Higher Education held in Kano in September 1984. There have also been reports of widespread failure in Oral English.
However, there are a number of factors that could impede the teaching and learning of Oral English, leading to widespread failure. These include environmental factors such as a lack of teaching and instructional materials, physical factors such as an unconducive classroom for learning, psychological factors such as learners’ lack of interest in learning Oral English, and so on.
Teachers’ stress appears to be the most significant factor that could affect Oral English teaching and learning, potentially leading to mass failure in Oral English Language at the Senior Secondary School level. As a result of this, the researchers decided to conduct this study to survey and observe how teachers’ stress affects the performance of senior secondary school students on Oral English, with the goal of determining how this occurs and offering suggestions on how it can be controlled.
The rate and severity of failure in Oral English by secondary school students in external examinations, particularly the West African School Certificate Examination, appears to be a national concern. As a result, a consensus has recently been formed for a national conference at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria to investigate the causes of mass failure of students in public examinations, particularly in Oral English.
Some researchers, such as Ifeanyi et al. (1990), attributed the widespread failure to laziness and a lack of seriousness on the part of parents who have a nonchalant attitude toward their children’s educational careers, particularly their spoken English.
Some parents, for example, discouraged their children from participating in debates or speech competitions, especially if such children were not participants or key actors. To become a good English speaker, one must observe and listen to good
English speakers and constantly practice what one has learned, because practice makes perfect. Again, some literate parents do not support teachers’ efforts by not correcting and teaching their children Oral English at home; in fact, some use Pidgin English to communicate with their children.
A large number of researchers blame it on teachers or a lack of dedication and effectiveness in their jobs. Others, on the other hand, blame the government for failing to provide an adequate and suitable environment for teaching and learning in schools. According to this school of thought, the government should be held accountable for the inadequacies and ineffectiveness of Oral English teaching and learning.
According to them, the government has failed to provide an environment conducive to teaching and learning; teachers are not paid salaries commensurate with their jobs; and their working conditions are deplorable. The majority of our Oral English teachers do not use aids, language laboratories, or current Oral English text books.
Many English teachers are not specialized in Oral English and lack the necessary skills, but they are expected to teach Oral English simply because they teach English.
Because of the aforementioned factors, teachers were under a lot of pressure to teach their students.
What exactly is stress?
Stress is defined by the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English as “constant feelings of worry about work or personal life.” Syle (1996) defined stress as a reaction to a demanding event. According to Syle (1996), circumstances that place physical or psychological demands on an individual can be quite stressful;
however, stress is an unavoidable accomplishment and influence on human existence throughout an individual’s life span. The following emotional and behavioral patterns indicate the presence of stress:
(a) Feelings of tension, apprehension, and fear
(b) Reactions indicating that one is concerned about a specific incident and
(c) Physiological and behavioral changes associated with anxiety.
Quick and Quick (1986) consider the topic of stress in the teaching profession to be very important because of the potential health problems and subsequent reduction in effectiveness in work performance. According to Cooper (1996),
such health problems can manifest as headaches, insomnia, nervous tension, and eventually breakdown of the nervous system, fatigue, and many other health hazards, poor job satisfaction, low self-esteem, and absenteeism, all of which lead to poor performance in the teaching of Oral English.
Stress in the teaching profession has been identified as a major cause of teacher burn out, a term coined by Enever (1988) to describe a person’s state of physical and emotional exhaustion caused by excessive demands on personal resources.
Environmental and occupational stressors have been studied in a variety of ways in terms of their qualitative and quantitative elasticity as perceived by an individual. When teachers of Oral English Language face stress, it may result in:
1) the inability to develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and behaviors that could improve students’ Oral English success.
2) Inadequate lesson preparation, resulting in ineffective learning.
3) Restrictions on teaching only from textbooks, which in most cases may contain outdated information and incorrect knowledge that the West African School Certificate Examinations Board does not assess. English language students who study with such teachers face numerous challenges in passing their exams and communicating effectively in the society in which they live (Ajayi, 1995).
4) the possibility of teaching what they are not supposed to teach and not teaching what they are supposed to teach, while many of them skip certain areas of the syllabus that they found difficult and time consuming Onwuchekwa (1996).
As a result, what the Oral English Language teachers teach in such circumstances is only a portion of what they are supposed to teach in the given subject. It is difficult to ensure that Nigerian secondary school students are learning what they are supposed to learn in Oral English.
There is an endless list of shortcomings that can arise as a result of stress on secondary school English teachers. According to Olupade (1996), during this period of rapid changes in educational structures with attendant psychological problems,
coupled with the high standard of work performance expected of teachers, who are themselves confronted with the biting effect of inflation in a depressed economy, teachers require counseling to be able to cope effectively with stressful situations.
1.1 Definition of the Problem
There is no doubt that English is the official language of Nigeria, both in and out of the classroom. As a result, it is critical that students master the subject thoroughly and speak it clearly and meaningfully. The essence of good speech is to enable them to get along in their daily activities, such as buying and selling, interviews, interactions in banks, hospitals, parties, shopping malls, and so on.
It also aids in self-preservation, respect, and political relationships through the appropriate use of language in various situations. A good speech with proper pronunciation commands respect and makes any symposium lively, whereas a bad speech results in boring communication, which is all too common among today’s students.
The researcher observed that students’ lack of correct and good pronunciation led to shyness in public. Some students have chosen to withdraw or keep their lips sealed during a discussion both inside and outside of school for fear of their classmates laughing at their pronunciations.
This demonstrates their level of exposure to Oral English learning. As a result, it will be a mistake to assume that the students are being taught by the right people in the right conditions and environment (Achuzie, 1988).
According to Onwucheka (1996), the following types of teachers can be found in the nation’s secondary schools: The Grade II, the (NCE) Nigeria Certificate in Education, the (OND) Ordinary National Diploma, the (HND) Higher National Diploma, and graduates without teaching qualifications are all available. There are also NCEs, ONDs/HNDs, and graduates with teaching credentials.
N.C.E. teachers are overworked in many states. They are only trained to teach at the junior levels of secondary schools, but they are now teaching all the way up to the senior secondary levels. Some of them are English Department Heads in our secondary schools in various states.
This development has lowered the standard of learning Oral English in our secondary schools, and as a result, teachers are unable to cope with the skills inherent in the English language, particularly Oral English.
Because they lack the resources to effectively teach Oral English, coupled with the poor environment in which learning takes place and the poor conditions of service, these poorly trained and inexperienced teachers teach Oral English with stress, causing students to learn ineffectively.
This has resulted in poor performance of students in Oral English in public examinations such as the West African School Certificate and General Certificate Examinations (WASC) (GCE).
Furthermore, the categories of teachers who are classified as having teaching qualifications are overburdened with other activities in school, such as being assigned to teach subjects that are irrelevant to their discipline, and so on.
This study seeks to investigate various factors that contribute to teacher stress and their impact on students’ performance in Oral English at the S.S. level in some selected schools in Mushin L.G.A. of Lagos State.
1.2The Study’s Purpose
The following are the objectives of this research:
I To assess the role of teachers in the widespread failure of students in Oral English in a sample of secondary schools.
ii) Determine the likely sources of stress in teachers and whether it affects their work performance.
iii) Determine whether there is a difference in academic performance between students who are taught in a conducive environment and those who are taught in an unconducive environment.
iv) Determine whether there are any potential solutions to the problem of student mass failure in Oral English.
1.3Research Issues
1. What are the most likely sources of stress for secondary school Oral English teachers?
2. To what extent does teachers’ methodology influence student failure in Oral English?
3. What is the difference in academic performance between students taught by experienced teachers and those taught by inexperienced teachers in Oral English?
4. Does stress have an impact on teachers’ work performance in schools?
5. How can an unfavorable environment lead to widespread failure of students in Oral English?
1.4The Study’s Importance
This study will benefit the school by changing their negative attitude and approach to school organization. The school will have a better understanding of the importance of providing full support to teachers in order for them to perform effectively, by providing instructional materials and teaching aids such as tape recorders, charts, videotapes, languages laboratories, libraries, and so on to facilitate the teaching and learning of Oral English and thus reduce teachers’ stress.
Teachers of Oral English will benefit from this study as well, as it will provide them with a better understanding of the appropriate methods for delivering Oral English lessons to students while avoiding stress, allowing them to overcome the problems identified and enumerated.
Students will benefit from the findings as well, as they will gain a better understanding of the causes of mass failure in both internal and external examinations in our country, particularly at West Africa Examination Council (WASC),
General Certificate of Education (GCE), Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), and others, in order to work harder and reduce the mass failure that is consistently recorded in our public examinations. It will allow them to strengthen their weak foundations by exposing them to co-curricular activities such as symposia, talks, impromptu speeches, debates, and so on.
External examination bodies such as WAEC, NECO, GCE, and others will benefit as well, as it will provide them with an insight and understanding of how and why students fail most public or externally organized examinations in Oral English, allowing them to ensure that questions set are relevant to the syllabus.
Because society is a stakeholder in our educational system, it will benefit as well. As a result, society should not be kept in the dark about the students’ well-being. They will be able to provide more helpful suggestions and recommendations.
1.5The Study’s Scope and Limitations
The scope of this study includes an assessment of teachers’ stress as one of the major factors contributing to students’ mass failure in Oral English language.
Due to the limited time available for research and financial resources, the study is limited to a few selected secondary schools in Lagos State’s Mushin Local Government Area.
1.6Term Definitions
Terms with operational definitions:
This is the act of expressing one’s opinion on the worth of someone or something.
Stress is the result of force or pressure brought on by difficulties or various problems in life.
Influential: The ability to influence a person’s behavior, either positively or negatively.
Multilingualism refers to the ability to understand and speak two or more official languages fluently.
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