An Investigation into the Performance of Language Major and Vocational and Technical Education Students in General English Courses in Southwestern Nigerian Colleges (Published)
The study investigates, by way of comparison, the performance level in GSE English Courses, offered by students majoring in Language Combinations and those majoring in Vocational and Technical Education combinations. These GSE English courses are otherwise known as “Use of English” in most tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In Colleges of Education, they are referred to as ‘General English I, II, III, IV and V. The study sets out to affirm whether field of study and duration of course do impact positively or otherwise in student’s learning outcome. Raw percentage scores of the same sets of 120 students who sat for the GSE English courses in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 were proportionally and purposively sampled in every course combinations in the Schools of Languages and Vocational and Technical Education at the Lanlate Campus of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo. The data was subjected to t-test analysis at 0.05 significant level and the results from the two tested hypotheses indicate that there is a significant difference in the performance level of the two groups in the 13/14/sessionally offered GSE English courses but was not so for 12/13 sessional courses. It was therefore recommended among others that lecturers teaching GSE English courses should vary their approaches and methods of teaching to suit students who do not major in Languages, especially, as they transit from one level to another.
Keywords: Duration of course., Field of study, Performance level