THE EFFECT OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE METHOD OF TEACHING VERB TENSES ON STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN WRITTEN ESSAY IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN BAUCHI STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

Problem of language transfer, coupled with poor teaching methods lead to wrong usage of tenses by students in their written essays. Writing has continued to be a problem to students, most especially those of tertiary institution, this problem is connected with the fact that students in Nigeria learn English as a second language and tend to transfer the rules of their first language into English language leading to errors mostly in grammar. This research investigates the impact of instruction on verb tenses on students’ performance in written essay in Colleges of Education in Bauchi State Nigeria. The work adopted quasi-experimental design using the pre-test and post-test method. Two colleges of Education were used as experimental and control group with a population of 835 NCE II English students and a sample of 100 students (50 per group/class). However, Continuous Writing Assessment Test (COWAT) was used to collect data for this study, while mean and standard deviation would be used to answer the four research questions guiding this study. Also, ANCOVA and T-test were used to test the hypotheses of this research at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings of this study revealed that communicative language method of teaching verb tense is very effective and highly significant in improving students’ performance in written essay at 0.000 level of significance. Also, the work showed that gender has no significant effect on students’ performance in written essay at 0.206 level of significance but significant when interacted with method at 0.23 level of significance. it was recommended that lecturers adopt the communicative language methods to not only English but other language classes as it gives room for students’ interdependence, interaction, enhances good communication and improve students’ participation in class. It is also recommended that government/school administrators grant teachers in-service and conduct seminars on latest language pedagogies to facilitate the deficit of using inappropriate language methods in language classrooms. Lastly, student teachers should be encouraged and guided on how to use the Communicative Language Method during and after teaching practice respectively.