REVIEW OF RELETED LITERATURE
Introduction.
Senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto State meet some difficulties and problems through the process of learning the target language (English language). English language deals with Grammar, Composition, Oral English and so on. All these elements are encountered by the students in learning of English language. The senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto State English language learners encounter difficulties in making proper use of them. They could not read, write, and speak in English language successfully. This research tries to survey the causes behind that.
Conceptual Framework.
There are several difficulties that affect the students’ learning of English as a foreign or second language (L2) in a nation with a first language (L1) like Nigeria, those factors that cause the difficulties to the students in learning English language are found in many component English language including Grammar, Composition and Oral English. These issues cause students to have difficulties in English language learning. So, this research has a main purpose to survey the causes of students difficulties in learning English language; implication for Educators.
The development in the quality of English language learning has no satisfaction towards the demand of the senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of
Sokoto State. This is because of lack of several factors to support the learning and teaching approaches of English language especially in grammar, Composition, Oral English.
Souvannasy, Masashi, & Yukiko (2008), identified that teaching and learning English language implementation still has shortage of textbooks, unqualified and incompetent English teachers and also unstandardized curriculum. The poor socioeconomic background is one of the factors that make learners to be faced with difficulties in the use of foreign language (Khattaket, 2011).
Mohammad, (2007); conducted investigation on factors that cause language anxiety for English students learners in learning speaking skills and the influence it casts on communication in the target language found difficulties of language learning, difference in learners’ and target language culture, the difference in social status of the speakers are the factors that affect to the students’ weakness of language learning.
Normazidah, Koo, & Hazita (2012); Trawinski (2005), also presented the factors that impact the English foreign learner (EFL) learners to have poor performance in English language learning are as follows:
English is regarded as a difficult subject to learn.
Learners’ learning depends on the English teacher as authorities.
There is a lack of support to use English in the home environment and the community.
Learners have insufficient or lack of exposure to the language as there is a limited opportunity to use English outside the classroom.
Students have a limitation of vocabulary proficiency as well as English reading materials are not always available.
Learners have an unwillingness and lack of motivation to learn English as they do not see the immediate need to use the language.
Lack of motivation for learning or the negative attitude towards the target language.
Chang (2010), indicated that reasons that cause student weakness in English language learning are due to learners, lack of efficiency of the school, and the insufficient parents’ promotion of the language. Moreover, Alderman (2004), states to the students’ poor performance in language learning affected from a lack of effort, lack of effective learning strategies, whereas a good language learner is a highly motivated students and a successful user of a large number of different strategies (Trawinski, 2005). So, teachers have to help them improve the motivational belief and language learning strategies in order to find ways that reach to their academic achievement.
2.2.1 English language
Aremu (2012), Noted that English language is a medium of communication, like any other language of the world. He added that English is the native language of some part of the western world like the Britain (united kingdom), some part of the America (U.S.A) etc. He further described English as one of the most spoken language of the world. Today, English is the lingua franca of Nigeria (official language) as Nigeria was colonized by the British people.
Aliyu (2012), also observed that English language is said to be the language which originates from the British as their native language. It is also recognized by the Americans with the exception of South Americans. At this juncture, English language can be defined as a means of communication adopted to be lingua franca of the British colonized nations and some part of the America. Since independent in Nigeria English is not only used as lingua franca but also the
language of instruction in schools to facilitate learning other subject except the Native language and French language in some schools.
Learning.
Travers (1977), defined learning as relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of exposure to conditions in the environment. Also Mukherjee (1978) is of opinion that learning is an inference from some performance of the organism manifesting change of behaviour. He argued that change in behaviour must be permanent and they do imply gain to the organism for his/her survival.
However, Zand (1980) perceived the concept of learning to be relatively permanent change in behavior or capability that results from experience. He was concerned with relatively stable change that occur in an individual behavior as a result of interaction with his environment. He also noted that all those changes have no connection with the growth process. Hence maturation should not be perceived as learning.
Difficulty
Scott (1980), defined it as “fact or condition of being difficult, degree to which something is difficult, difficulty of a job prevented someone from finishing it on time or something which stand in the way of getting things done”.
Areas of the Difficulties in Learning English Language.
The English language is one of the most popular language to learn, perhaps the most spoken language around the world is English, and many people choose to learn the language simply to place them in a better position to secure work, educational purpose, or communicate more effectively with more people from around the globe. English might be a popular language to learn, but this does not necessarily means it is a simple language to learn, there are many difficulties students face when learning English language in school. Areas of such difficulties are:
Grammar.
Grammar is the system of a language. People sometimes describe grammar as the “rule” of a language; in learning grammar, three areas have to be considered: Grammar as rules, Grammar as form, Grammar as resource. For many second language learners, learning grammar often means learning the rules of grammar and having an intellectual knowledge of grammar. Teachers often believe that this will provide the general basis on which learners can build their knowledge and will be able to use the language effectively.
Composition.
Hornby (1998:234) defines composition as a “short piece of writing done as a school or college exercise. The parts of elements of which something is made”.
Gurrey (1975) states that there are six aspects of children’s written works that need attention such as:
Grammatical correction.
The content and ideas in the written.
The relevance of ideas to the subject.
The continuity of language and of thought.
The orderly arrangement of ideas.
The expression of these ideas.
Composition is used in linguistics to refer to a hierarchical mode of linguistic structure in which larger units are composed of smaller unit e.g, the relationship between sentence, clause, phrase, word and morpheme (crystal, 1980:77). It is possible to say that the composition is the production of the potential sources of knowledge about a language, so the students can express thier attitude or opinions by using these units to pass ideas or feelings to the others.
Oral English.
The use of English as a second language (ESL) or foreign language (EFL) in oral communication is without doubt, one of the most common but highly complex activities necessary to be considered when learning the English language especially because we “live at a time where the ability to speak English fluently has become a must, especially who want to advance in certain field of human endeavor” (Al-Sibai, 2004).
The focus of learning speaking, of course is to improve the oral production of the students. Therefore, language learning activities in the classroom should aim at maximizing individual language use. In the past, oral communication instruction was neglected because of the misconception that oral communication competence develops naturally over time and that the cognitive skills involved in writing automatically transfer to analogous oral communication skills (chaney,1998).
However, Ur(1996) considered speaking as the most important skill among three skills (speaking, reading, writing) because people who know a language are refered to as
speaking of that language. This indicates that using a language is more important than just knowing about it because “there is no point knowing a lot about language if you can not use it” (serivener, 2005).
Causes of Difficulties in Learning English Language.
There are many causes of student’s difficulties in learning English language among senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of sokoto state; such as the weakness of curriculum design, lack of English teachers, and lack of students’ learning motivation. John & Ehow (2011), stated that the problem of learning English language are derived from many different factors in different environments such as school resources, class size, quality of teacher, and the school attendance of learners.
Murray & Christison (2010), observed that many students think English language is only a school subject and they do not see its significance for their prospective employment to work with multinational or national companies where English is employed. Hutchinson & waters (1991), pointed out that the mismatch between the students’ conceptual or cognitive capacities and the learners’ English proficiency level often cause problems for students because the students’ learning style and teachers’ teaching approach do not match and also the English course does not relate to the students usually have poor strategies and give up easily when they find it as a struggle.
The areas of difficulties of senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of sokoto in learning English language are in grammar, composition and oral English which the researchers find interesting in looking into the causes of the difficulties.
Causes of Difficulties in Learning Grammar
Dekeyser & Sokalski (1996) consider grammatical difficulty in relation to comprehension and production. They argue that some grammar structures are easy to comprehend.
Grammatical difficulty has also been discussed in literature with reference to several other factors including.
Inherent complexity of rules.
Salience of a grammar form in the input.
Communicative force of a grammar form.
Input processing strategies in second language learning.
Individual differences in language aptitude.
Grammatical difficulty is related to each of these five factors.
Inherent complexity of rules.
It is frequently assumed that grammatical difficulty is in past dependent on the inherent complexity of rules; that is, the more complex the rules of a grammar form are, the more difficult it is for the English language learners to learn.
Salience of a grammar form in the input.
Salience of a grammar form is often discussed with reference to the “accessibility” and “availability” of the target form; the form is primarily contingent upon various linguistics attributes of the form, while the latter concerns the frequency of the form in the input to which learners are exposed.
Communicative force of a grammar form.
Also related to the issue of salience and thus to the discussion of grammatical difficulty is the communicative force of a grammar form. According to Vanpatten (2002), a form has communicative force if it contributes to the meaning of an utterance.
Input processing strategies in second language learning.
Vanpatten (2002), argues that the use of inappropriate psycholinguistic processing strategies in second language learning may also result in increased grammatical difficulty.
Individual differences in language aptitude.
It is assumed that grammatical difficulty is, to some extent, associated with individual difference in language aptitude. This is based on the view that learners with a stronger ability to learn language may be better equipped to deal with grammatical difficulty in the second language than learners with weaker aptitude.
Causes of difficulty in learning composition.
Composition (essay writing) whether it is a narrative, a persuasive piece or research, writing an essay can be challenging. The writing process is often a long road, where students must confront their assumption of who they are as writers. Students face challenges in areas such as.
Getting started
Difficulty in starting an essay is often one of the first problem students writers run into. Many students can not write successfully. Saving time by first identifying the
purpose of your writing. Writing down every idea you think of, even if you are certain it will not end up in the essay. Then you can take these materials and find the most important points to address.
Voice and Audience
Because academic writing requires an objective. Third person voice that fit the formality of an essay could be used. Many students struggle with omitting slang, colloquialisms, and everyday speech patterns.
Fear of failure.
Many students struggle with insecurities about their writing abilities. Whether they just do not know how to write or do not like to write or have had negative experience in the past they may be self conscious about expressing themselves.
Citing sources.
Documenting sources through in-text citation and work cited pages in an important convention of academic writing. Unfortunately, confusion about how to cite correctly can result in plagiarism, which is wrong and a punishable act.
Causes of difficulty in learning oral English.
Zhang (2009) argued that speaking remains the most difficult skill to master for the majority of English learners, and they are still incompetent in communicating orally in English. Ur (1996), opined there are many factors that cause difficulty in speaking, and they are as follows:
Inhibition. Students are worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism, or simply shy.
Nothing to say. Students have no motive to express themselves.
Low or uneven participation. Only one participant can talk at a time because of large classes and the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others very little or not at all.
Mother tongue use. Learners who share the same mother tongue tend to use it because it is easier and because learners feel less exposed if they are speaking their mother tongue.
Measures of improve the learning of English language.
English as a language of education and instruction, should be taught with greater consideration. This I mean the instructors of English language in most of the senior secondary schools of Wamakko Local Government Area of sokoto state, should pay greater attention to their student if at all they want their student to come up with a standard English.
Here are some of the measures to improve the learning of English language especially in the component such as grammar, composition and oral English as follows:
Motivation for English language learning.
In general, motivation is recognized as one of the most significant factors affecting students’ performance in grammar, composition, and oral English learning. Motivation can influence students’ freedom, attention, attempt, patience, the frequency of using learning strategies, and their learning success (Zhon 2012). Learners have pleasure for a second or foreign language
learning when they receive motivation, especially internal motivation because it could be well predicted by perceived second language ability and independence (Wu, 2003).
Moreover, if students are strongly motivated, they will enjoy learning the language, need to learn the language and attempt to learn the language (sakiroglu and dikilitas 2012). Motivation has usually been considered to be the key concept in the learning of foreign language (klimova, 2011).
Learning strategies
Learning strategies are the method that learners use to obtain information, normally high achievers learners use more learning strategies than lower achieving learners (Dembo, 2004). They can facilitate specific aspects of the learner’s competency such as communicative, and individual’s emotional state that relate to the learning process (Trawinski, 2005). Students are able to overcome their weakness in some learning styles, especially in grammar, composition and oral English with suitable strategy training, and learning strategies can influence student’s learning achievement.
Moreover, learning strategies factors also enhance students to be good learners as Oxford (2011), classifies the characteristics of the good learner that she/he:
Is an enthusiastic and accurate guesser;
Has a strong drive to communicate;
Is uninhabited and ready to make mistakes;
Emphasizes on form by looking at patterns and using analysis;
Take improvement of all practice opportunities;
Monitor his or her own speech and that of other;
Pays attention to meaning;
3. Direct method.
This is the most natural method for teaching a foreign language to students. The direct method does need very careful preparation and the beginning stages have to be taken rather slowly but it is worth while in the end; this is to say only English language should be spoken in the classroom.
Summary and Uniqueness of the Study
It is worthy to note that this work is unique in its own way in terms of the design, population, sample size, location and instrumentation for data collection. The design is survey research design. The population comprises of all public senior secondary school of Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto State. The sample size comprise of one hundred and fifty eight students which is relatively a large sample size than most of the cited. The location is Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto State, the instrument used was adapted. The use of such a large sample and an empirically validated instrument on difficulties influencing learning difficulties in learning English language which provides a more appropriate avenue for generalization of the findings from this research.
Conclusion.
It is of no use reading, speaking or writing unless we are understood. In order to be understood, we must read, speak or write in the way the language is usually read, spoken or written. There is more to teaching English than knowing how to speak it, and there is more to learning English than just using it.
In conclusion there can only be no difficulties in learning English language if the following can be put into consideration, a sound and good mastery of the subject to be taught by the teacher, good communication skills and clarity of voice should be possessed by the teacher, respect for students being way of tolerating some of their behavior, their learning condition and background. The present work aimed at finding causes of student’s difficulties in learning English language among senior secondary school students of Wamakko Local Government Area of sokoto state; implication for language Educators, and also resolving the above problems through careful observation and recording of students’ behavior during some of their lessons and also provide measures to improved the learning of English language.