WELCOME TO KENTERPRO:
IMPACT OF DRILL ON THE WRITING SKILLS OF SELECTED JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN KANKE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of Study:

Many students of English consider writing the most difficult language skills to master. Teachers too, face difficulties in developing their students’ capability in writing. Teacher normally set aside a class of two or three periods for writing task because it took some time to produce essays. Normally a topic is written on the whiteboard, and the teacher spends a few minutes telling the students what he or she wants them to write concerning the topic. The teacher then instructs the students to start writing and to hand in the finished product at the end of the lesson or the following day. The composition is then marked, and the teacher corrects errors. He or she then returns the books, makes a few remarks to the students concerning their performance, instructs them to do corrections and proceed to give them a new written assignment (Raimes, 2017: 1-6).

There are many language learning strategies or techniques that can be accommodated in the classrooms’ teaching and learning sessions. In this research, the researcher has focused on the use of drilling technique or repetition drill (Freeman, 2016) in a mixed gender classrooms for both control and treatment group. Besides that, it was used among limited proficiency students and their level are very poor whereby they cannot write even in using the simplest of English. It is a technique that allows and helped the students in writing because they are exposed to the technique. Researcher, (Gomez, Parker & Alecio, 2016) have considered ‘structured writing’ traditionally referred to drill and practice, involving copying sentences, paragraph, or essays, and correcting without actually writing. Lessons are drill-and-practice based on hierarchical skill sequence with few extended writing opportunities. This approach has been noted in extended classroom observations. In their research they found out that:

The Structured Writing (SW) classes engaged in daily structured writing, during the same time period as the Free Writing (FW) group. In the Structured Writing (SW) classes, the teacher assigned topics, and students wrote intensively, in nine minutes of concentrated writing time. Students were instructed to work alone and quietly during the concentrate writing time. The teacher, who focused on avoiding those errors on their next writing sample, subjected writing samples to error corrections. No dialogue was established between the teacher and students, and writing as a social process was not emphasized or encouraged. Instead, guidelines for the Structured Writing (SW) treatment reflected writing as an individual skill growth process. (p.219)

Language learning strategies, such as the drilling technique will be able to help the limited learners in writing. At least by doing the drill and practice it will enable the students to write essays given by the teachers because they are familiar with the formats especially in terms of descriptive essays. This type of essays is one of the easiest topics to do by the learners because they will describe the person, place or things with the adjectives they have learned to be used in their descriptive essays. It has become essential for learners at all schooling levels to write and understand their written texts or what they have written. Actually most teachers have implemented this technique without realizing it they are using this technique in their teaching and learning process. According to Blasingame & Bushman (2015) as cited in Wilder & Mongillo (2017):Basically without realizing it, most of the language teachers are using this drilling technique or this strategy to help their low proficiency students in passing their English papers. They have used this technique in years of teaching the students but did not know the specific terms to describe it. Usually the English language teachers would use this technique in teaching writing because in most of the time and throughout the years the low proficiency students had to be drilled to make sure that they would be able to write a few sentences during their examinations.

Typically, students attend classes for a first exposure to the course materials and drills provide a platform for consolidating student learning through more interactive discussion and problem-solving activities. Teaching, especially in large classrooms, is typically a one-way communication from the teacher to the students. In contrast, drills provide the appropriate forum for a two-way communication between the instructor and students. As drills permit interactive discussion on course topics via drills questions and problem-solving activities, drills play a key role in consolidating students’ course-specific knowledge.

Further, in English teaching courses where student assessment comprises mainly closed-book examinations during and at the end of the term, questions on the examination may largely follow the format of drills questions. In such an environment, students would be keen to access drills solutions. However, there are arguments both for and against releasing drills solutions. Drill provides generally new information to the students in much the same manner as a human teacher or tutor might.

According to Tella (2017) drills are based on the principles of programmed learning or instruction. Drill involves a sequence of tasks, exercises, or words repeated over and over until they can be performed faultlessly. Drills, drill and practice are interactive and help students remember the concepts they have been taught previously (Widmayer & Alayne, 2017). English Language learning strategies, such as the drilling technique will be able to help the limited learners in writing. At least by doing the drill and practice it will enable the students to write essays given by the teachers because they are familiar with the formats especially in terms of descriptive essays. This type of essays is one of the easiest topics to do by the learners because they will describe the person, place or things with the adjectives they have learned to be used in their descriptive essays. It has become essential for learners at all schooling levels to write and understand their written texts or what they have written.

Actually most teachers have implemented this technique without realizing that they are using this technique in their teaching and learning process. According to Wilder & Mongillo (2017) most of the language teachers are using this drilling technique or this strategy to help their low proficiency students in passing their English papers. They have used this technique in years of teaching the students but did not know the specific terms to describe it.

Usually the English language teachers would use this technique in teaching writing because in most of the time and throughout the years the low proficiency students had to be drilled to make sure that they would be able to write a few sentences during their examinations. As Heward points out, drill and practice can be conducted in ways that render it pointless and a waste of time. Research has shown, however, that when properly conducted, drill and practice is a consistently effective teaching method. For example, a recent meta-analysis of 85 academic intervention studies with students with learning disabilities found that regardless of the practical or theoretical orientation of the study, the largest effect sizes were obtained by interventions that included systematic drill, repetition, practice, and review (Blasingame & Bushman, 2017). Drills when used in combination with practice provides instruction in such a way that each drills lesson has a series of frame or branches. In addition, the use of drills and practice for instruction brings with it several benefits as a teaching/learning medium. These include self-paced learning, self-directed learning, the exercising of various senses and the ability to represent content in a variety of media. In a study, Momoh-olle (2019) found that male generally outperformed girls in retention test in English while Ngwoke (2018) found a similar result in Linguistic. Students’ interest, achievement and retention in any learning activity are sustained by the active involvement of the learner in all aspects of the learning process. Ogwo and Oranu, (2017) and Ngwoke (2018) emphasized that unless the teacher stimulates students’ interest in learning, students’ achievement will be minimal. Hence, it is essential that English teachers use teaching method which ensures students’ active involvement in learning and provide suitable learning environment to improve achievement and stimulate interest of students in English.

 Drills is defined as a form of specialized learning with qualified coaching, the use of micro-computers for learning drills. Or with any other explanation that the drills is learning guidance in the form of referrals, assistance, guidance, and motivation for students to learn efficiently and effectively. Providing assistance means helping students to learn the subject matter. According to Rusman (2018) learning drills are a way of learning to train students on the lesson material that has been given. Drills will be implanted through certain habits in the form of exercise. With continuous practice, it will be embedded and then it will become a habit. In addition, in order to inculcate the habit, these drills can also increase the speed, accuracy, completeness of doing things and can also be used as a way to repeat the training material that has been presented; it can also increase the speed.

 As an instructional strategy, drill & practice is familiar to all educators. It “promotes the acquisition of knowledge or skill through repetitive practice.” It refers to small tasks such as the memorization of spelling or vocabulary words. Drill-and-practice, like memorization, involves repetition of specific skills, such as addition and subtraction, or spelling. To be meaningful to learners, the skills built through drill-and-practice should become the building blocks for more meaningful learning.

• Statement of the Problem:

Learning outcome of every student majorly depends on the type of teaching methods, teaching strategies, and instructional techniques or approaches employed by the teacher during instruction. Traditional teaching methods such as lecture, demonstration and field trip adopted for teaching English Language in Junior secondary school by teachers are often referred to as conventional teaching method termed to be teacher centered instead of students centered. This method teaching technical subjects discouraged creativity and disallowed students from thinking beyond what is presented to them by their teachers. The students are reduced to passive learners and as a result become apathetic and repulsive to learning. Lack of application of effective methodology for teaching technical subjects as major reason for low academic achievements of students in junior secondary schools. Traditional method of teaching do not adequately equip teachers with contemporary views of students’ intelligences and their vast learning capabilities. Hence, this traditional teaching methods used by these teachers may be responsible for the low academic achievement in English language. Therefore, to find solution to these problems, there is need to determine the effect Computer drill and practice alternative teaching method on the academic performance of students in English Language in junior secondary school.

• Purpose of the Study

 The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of drill and practice on the academic performance of students in writing in junior secondary school in Kanke. Specifically, the study will seek to:

1. Determine the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drills and those taught without it in organization.
2. Determine the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drill1s and those taught without it in use of punctuation.
3. Determine the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drills and those taught without it in idea generation.

1.4. Research Questions

The following research questions was formulated to guide this study:

1. What are the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drills and those taught without it in organization?
2. What are the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drills and those taught without it in use of punctuation?
3. What are the achievement scores of students taught English Language with writing drills and those taught without it in idea generation?

1.5. Significance of the Study

The benefits that occur from this study are many, specifically, the findings will be beneficial to students, teachers, ministry of education, curriculum planners and researchers.

The findings of this study if found to have positive effect and implemented will also be of benefit to students’ participation and interest in the class room writing activities. There will be improvement in students’ achievements in writing through the use of drill and practice and connection to real world of work. This in turn will enable students to pass their external examinations in English Language writing.

Teachers will benefit from the result of this study in that they will use the standardized instrument to evaluate the students in writing, rather than the teacher-made test. English Language teachers’ work will become easier and interesting as they will be playing supervisory roles whereby student centered interactive instruction will be used to secure and sustain the attention of the students in learning writing in English Language. The knowledge of drill and practice if found effective will help the teachers to improve their instructional delivery to bridge the gap in achievement in English Language writing.

Ministry of Education will benefit from the findings of this study. Effectiveness of drill and practice, will no doubt influence the decision of the Ministry of Education on the need to incorporate writing drills as an teaching method in teaching English writing. Furthermore, findings will also sensitize the Ministry to organize conferences, workshops and seminars to train English Language teachers on the use of writing drills and practice to improve their instructional delivery.

The result will be of immense benefit to the English Language curriculum developers because they will find it valuable especially in the provision of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of drill and practice in the teaching of English Language.

Finally, when this study is completed, it will serve as reference materials to future researchers who would want to carry out research on similar topic. It will add to the already existing body of literature on impact of drill on the writing skills of secondary school students.

1.6. Scope and Delimitation of the Study

            The study covers effects of drills on the performance of students in writing in Senior Secondary Schools. The study is restricted to selected secondary schools in Kanke Local government Area of Plateau State. In content, the study shall cover punctuation, idea generation and idea organization. Despite the fact that the study is restricted to the selected Local Government Area, its findings will be generalized to other parts of the state and country as a whole.

1.7. Definition of Terms:

Drill: is a classroom technique used to practise new language. It involves the teacher modelling a word or a sentence and the learners repeating it.

Practice: is the act of rehearsing a behaviour over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it.

Teaching Methods: It refers to the general principle, pedagogy and management strategies used for classroom instruction.

Conventional Method: is concerned with the teacher being the controller of the learning environment. Power and responsibility are held by the teacher and they play the role of instructor (in the form of lectures) and decision maker (in regards to curriculum content and specific outcomes).