Use of Drills and Secondary School Students’ Achievement in the English Language Spelling

Abstract

The discrepancies in the spelling pattern and oral articulation of words in the English language reveal the reasons why English is often regarded as a difficult subject to a second language learner. This could be exemplified in the six different pronunciations of 'ough' articulated thus in the following words: bough, cough, thorough, thought, through, and rough. This subtle, but obvious challenge of mastery could be attributed to pedagogical issues. The repeated abysmal failures in English language in West African Examination Councils and National Examinations' Council (NECO) SSCE examination and the consequent lamentation of the WAEC Chief examiners' report necessitated this research. This study adopted a pretest post test quasi experimental research design with four intact classes of SSII students, who were subjected to treatment and control. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study and a sample of 264 students (comprising 107 males and 157 females) were used. The validation and test of reliability were accurately done. The instrument for data collection was the English Language Achievement Test (ELAT) which was developed by the researcher. Data collected were analyzed using the inferential statistics of mean and standard deviation for the research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results of study revealed amongst others that there was a significant difference in the scores of students taught English language spelling with drills and those taught with the conventional method; while the second hypothesis was accepted, which shows that there is no significant difference in the performance of male and female students taught spellings with drills. Based on these results, recommendations were made on the need for teachers to adopt drill method in teaching spelling to SSII students because of its dynamic traits.