The Effect of Parental Supportiveness and Gender on English Language Achievement of Primary School Children in South-Eastern, Nigeria

Abstract

English is a very important language in Nigeria today. It is a unifying language for the federation and also a major language of instruction in Nigerian schools. It is as well the official language of government business and the language of commerce and trade. Most school books and reading materials are written in English, but the standard of written and spoken English language by Nigerian pupils is very poor. It has been suspected that poor English language skill is a major contributor to the recurring mass failure of Nigerian students in public examinations. This study therefore investigated the effect of parental home-work supervision on English Language achievement of primary school children. The study is a quasi-experiment with pretest, post-test control group design. The experimental group adopted monitored parental home-work supervision while for the control group, the parent were neither trained nor monitored. The treatment lasted six weeks before the post test. English Language Achievement Test with reliability of 0.87 was used to measure learner achievement. The result showed that monitored parental home-work supervision was significantly better than the control (t- obt = 3.40, p<.05). The effect of gender was not significant. Regular Parental home-work supervision was recommended. Keywords: Parental Supportiveness, home-work, supervision, Gender, Achievement and English Language