Making Omelette without Breaking Eggs: Improving the Reading Comprehension Skills of English as a Second Language Teachers in Nigeria Secondary Schools

Abstract

One of the important language skills teachers are expected to master and teach their students is how to develop comprehension skills and comprehend whatever they read, be able to recall information and apply such-appropriate comprehension skills later in life Unfortunately, teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria do not seem to have fully mastered the skills and techniques of impacting appropriate comprehension knowledge and skills into their students. Thus, most secondary schools students are not able to comprehend effectively, do not perform well in comprehension tests and subsequently do not do well in most situations where comprehension skills are required. Asking teachers to facilitate the acquisition of comprehension skills by students when they themselves do not know whether to teach or test comprehension skills is akin to wanting them to make omelette without breaking eggs. Therefore, in order to have a firsthand information on strategies teachers adopt in impacting the knowledge of comprehension skills into their students, this study, through observation and verification, examines what teachers of comprehension actually do in impacting the knowledge of comprehension in their students in selected secondary schools in Ibadan, and makes recommendations on what should be included in the curricula of teacher preparation programmes in Nigeria with a view to helping teachers of English as a Second Language to acquire appropriate strategies of handling comprehension lessons and ultimately facilitating, in their students, effective acquisition of comprehension skills.