THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER IN THE USE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE OF 400 LEVEL STUDENT OF SOKOTO STATE UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER ONE/INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Despite the importance attached to the English Language, and efforts made by stake holders in the educational sector to optimize the learning of English Language as a school subject, students’ achievement in English Language has not commensurate to the investment made in it. There has been a fall in students’ academic achievement in English Language over the years as compared to other subjects in the school system. Evidence abounds that students have not been doing well in English Language. Adeosun (2010) observed that the low standard of English Language is reflected in the large number of candidates who failed the school certificate English. Eme (2012) revealed that 67.43%, 60.56%, 53.79% and 41.82% of students who sat for this examination failed in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively. Also the result of the SSCE from 2012 to 2014 showed that 2012 (38.81%), 2013 (36.57%) and 2014 (31.28%) respectively passed the subject at least at credit level (West Africa Examination Council 2014). From the result, it has shown a drastic decline in the achievement of students in the subject. This statistics and report is a call for concern for any patriotic stakeholder in the education subsector to ponder over the system.
According to Fakeye (2011), Nigerian secondary school students have problems in the learning of English Language as revealed in their achievement in the public examinations. Therefore, this situation is a source of concern, and has aroused the interest of these researchers to investigate possible causes of lapses in the effective learning of English Language. Many likely factors may be responsible for these students’ poor academic achievement in the subject. Researchers such as Eme (2012) and Obanya (2013) have pointed out some factors such as the teacher, the school and the home environment. Others are peer group influence, pedagogical variables, government policies among others. However, in view of the entrenched gender practices in Nigeria and cross River State, particularly, an investigation of the role of gender is still valid
Gender has been regarded as an important affective factor that plays a specific role and influences second language acquisition, (Zoghi, Kazemi & Kalan 2013). In a study on students’ personal variables as correlates of academic achievement in English as a second language in Lagos State, Nigeria, Fakeye (2011) investigated the relationship between students’ personal variables and achievement in English Language. Questionnaire on “Students’ Attitude to English” (QSAE) and “Students’ Academic Ability Test” (SAAT) were used for data collection. A sample of four hundred 400) Senior Secondary school studentswere randomly selected from five (5) secondary schools for the study. A correlational analysis and a t-test were run on the variables and the students’ annual scores in English. The analyses revealed that the difference between male and female students’ achievements in English Language was not significant. (T-value 0.305, degree of freedom was 398 and p > 05).There have been a number of other empirical studies on the same subject matter by different researchers in different places using different samples and methodology but still came to the same conclusion that gender has no significant influence on academic achievement of students in English Language (Okoye (2009);Obadaki (2011); Babalola and Onyiloye (2012); Adeyemi and Adeyemi; (2013) Adeyemi (2014).
However, Zoghi, Kazemi and Kalan (2013) in a related study examined the effect of gender on English as a foreign language (EFL) in Iran Language Institute (ILS) using100 students (50 males and 50 females) selected from four different classes. The ages of the participants range between 12 and 14 years. The employed procedures were quantitative methods of analysis and making use of descriptive analysis, pair t-test, and the effect size. The total average of the female students (M=13.18) is higher than that of males’ (M= 11.47). Female students outperformed the male students. In this case, female students had a standard deviation of 3.20 whereas males had achieved a standard deviation of 3.54. It shows the amount of variation within scores was smaller in females than males. This produced a t-value of -3.928 and a p-value of .000, which is less than the .05 significant level. The results indicated that English as a Foreign Language learning is to some extent related to gender and it has a significant effect on the achievement test. This conclusion was earlier adopted by Bidin and Jusof (2012).
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