Abstract
This survey tested the null hypothesis that teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards reading and writing do not simultaneously predict students’ achievement in the English language. The researcher utilized a sample of 38 teachers and 492 senior secondary school students from 12 schools in Benue State, Nigeria, for the study. The researcher developed and utilized the English Language Students’ Attitude Scale (ELSAS), English Language Teachers’ Attitude Scale (ELTAS), and Reading and Writing Achievement Test (RWAT) for data collection. An estimate of internal consistency was obtained through Cronbach’s Alpha and Kuder Richardson’s reliability methods and found to be 0.76 for ELSAS, 0.68 for ELTAS, and 0.81 for RWAT. Data analysis was by multiple regression statistics. The findings revealed that both English language teachers and students have a positive attitude towards reading and writing (F3, 492 = 0.160, p0.05) implying that teachers and students’ attitudes towards reading and writing jointly predicted students’ achievement in the English language in senior secondary schools. To conclude, learning would be facilitated if both teachers and students hold positive attitudes towards reading and writing, and this, in turn, could impact the students’ achievement in the English language. It was recommended that teachers should plan reading and writing instruction that can help students develop positive attitudes to these skills and parents should help in the development of these skills at home.
Highlights
English is an international language that plays a crucial role in making people acquire knowledge, information, and skills in communication (Ghazali et al, 2009)
Students who developed a good attitude towards reading have the tendency to do well in writing, as the skills developed through reading could positively influence their skills in writing. This result implies that students who develop a positive attitude towards reading and writing would likely have higher achievement in the English language if their attitude is sustained in the study of these two components of the English language
Students who develop a positive attitude towards reading and writing would likely have higher achievement in the English language if their attitude is sustained in the study of these two components of the English language
Summary
English is an international language that plays a crucial role in making people acquire knowledge, information, and skills in communication (Ghazali et al, 2009). Constituted governments and organisations accord English as high esteem. In Nigeria, there is a high demand for the citizens to learn the English language both for formal and non-formal purposes. For students attending secondary schools, the onus is on them to become proficient in reading and writing. Students should know the purpose of reading, the context, the meaning of the text, and should receive information from it (Akmal et al, 2020). Writing on the other hand is a form of human communication by means of a set of visible marks that are related, by convention, to some particular structural level of language (Oslon, n.d.)
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