Case Study at Macombe Secondary School in Gondola

1. Fernando Borge Mafuca
Project Proposal
The Problems and Prospects of Teaching English Language in Secondary Schools - Case
study at Macombe Secondary School in Gondola
(Licenciatura em Ensino de Inglês com Habilitações em Português)
Universidade Púnguè
Chimoio
2019

2. Fernando Borge Mafuca
The Problems and Prospects of Teaching English Language in Secondary Schools - Case
study at Macombe Secondary School in Gondola
Scientific Research Work to be
Submitted to Department of Language
Science, Communication and Arts, for
the obtainment of Licenciatura Degree in
English Language Teaching.
Supervisor:
António Bonifácio Companhia
Universidade Púnguè
Chimoio
2019

3. CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The English language is generally acknowledged as a global language, in view of its numerous
functions and preference over several other languages around the globe. Going by the history of
English Language, it is important to note that it started with the coming of the three Germanic
tribes namely: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, who invaded Britain during the 5th century
AD and crossed the North Sea from what is now modern day Denmark and northern Germany.
Before the invasion of Britain by the three Germanic tribes, the language spoken by the
inhabitants of Britain was a Celtic language. Shortly after the invasion however, the language that
was confined to Britain around the 5th century has gone beyond the boundaries of Britain and is
still spreading like wild fire.
Apart from being a language of global unification, English is also seen as a veritable tool for
learning, business and interactional purposes, among other functions. In view of its relevance,
English is not only the mother tongue in Britain but also the mother tongue of several other
countries like Canada, the United States of America, New Zealand, to mention just a few. It is
also used as a second and a foreign language (EFL) in many countries like Nigeria, Ghana and
many other developing countries.
The English has remained a very important tool for socialization and bureaucracy activities in
Mozambique, since the days of colonialism. Then, English was taught to their native servants just
to equip them for domestic functions.
Language Teaching in Mozambique had fraught with dificiences. The major resaon for these
dificiencies is our English teachers who are not well-trained only but also non-professionals. And
even if they are some what trained, their tarning is not up to work. A situation where a teacher of
language has no martery of if grammatical categories, as we see today, does not mean well for
thge system. Also writing on these problems facing language teaching, Regneret al (2001)
ascertained that "many good teachers are adoptive rather than rigid in their approach to teaching
students and only loosely base on their instrution on a given method. Language is the official
medium of communication to humans. It is one of the things that differentiate man form animals.
Signs and symbols have no international understanding and may be dificult to understand.

4. Picture, painting and sculptures cannot be read by all. This makes language superior to all of
them because it is easily understood and generally used. According to Ozohili Oby (2007)
language literally means the "tongue" a human organ used in speaking. Acorrding to Ozohili
(2007), traditionally, language is defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by which
thoughts are communnicated from one being to onother.
1.4. Significance of the study
Any academinc research embarked upon must be aimed towards achieving a particular goal
which will be significant to the society.
Based on this, the findings of this study will provide us with the basic information on the nature
and causes of the problems, which will be of a great importance to teach the students in Gondola
Secondary Schools. Therefore, they will go along way in improving teachers teaching methonf
and students standard in both wrtitenand spoken English, so as to enhence good performance of
the students in examinations. It will help teachers to know the areas in which these problems
occur mostly and frequently and then improve their teaching strategies.
The fondings of the study will help authors and texbook publishers to know the areas to stress the
subject.
1.2. Statement of the problem
The English Language is our cultural window into the world of heterogeneuos culture and
traditions. It is a gate of higher intellectual pursuit. It is our medium of intruction in schools from
the kindergarten to university level.
Therefore, students at the secondary school levels are expected to communicate effectively in
writing using the English Language.
It is however regrettable that the teaching of this important tool of both effective education and
national/International socialization at secondary schools in Macombe…, Just like in other
secondary schools in Gondola had been suffering some defects and neglects alike.
Lack of qualified teacher equipped to groom the students seems to be the major problems in the
schools - Text books are constantly changed thereby causing disjointed teaching method.

5. Other instructional materials are also not available. Language Laboratory to aid the acquisition
and master of English Sounds is a strange story to both the teachers and students in this area.
Above all, mother tongue interference poses a deblitating danger to the prospect of good English
acquisition in those secondary schools.
Since the students dirst acquired their mother tongue before learning the English Language this
leads to grammatical erros in time of their perfomance as these vernacular patterns are differnt
from English patterns.
1.3. Research Objectives
1.3.1. General
 The objective of this research was to find out the problems and prospects of teaching
English Language at Macombe Secondary Schools in Gondola.
1.3.2. Specific
 Find out how lack of teaching and learning material have contributed problems in the
teaching and learning of English language.
 To analyse the techniques that students use to improve their English;
 To find out the major problems of teaching English in the Schools.
1.2. Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: There is any significant effect of teaching and learning English Language.
Hypothesis 2: There is a significant effect of students of English in secondary schools look down
upon their language and have a negative attitude towards it.
1.3. Purpose of the study
The major aim of this study is to determine the problems facing the teaching and learning of the
English Language at Macombe Secondary Schools in Gondola and possible prospects to that
specifically, the study indented to:
 Identify and classify these problems;
 Determine the magnitude of these problems;

6.  To know if there is any problem in teaching and learning English language.
1.5. Research questions
The following research questions have been formulated to quide the study:
 Do Secondary School teachers use intructional resources frequently in teaching the
English Language?.
 Do the English Language teachers use appropriate methonds in teaching English
Language frequently?.
 Do Secondary Schools students in Macombe Secondary School learn English Langauge
environment conducive to learning?.
 Do you think that the existing condition can be improved upon?.
1.6. Limitation of the study
In consequence with the topic of this project which is " problems and prospects of teaching
English Language in Secondary School, case of Macombe". The reasercher has no intettion to
study other Schools outsith the given Distrit. Efforts made in the past improving these problems
will not receive attenton for treatment here since the existence of the problmes prove then
ineffective.
1.8. Definition of key terms
The follong words and phares which form the foundation for this study are hereby explained for
the effective comprehension of this research work.
English: It is the language of England, use in many varieties throughout the world.
Teaching: It is a way of give lessons in a class to learner. It is also a way to show someone how
to do something.
Learner: One who gain knowledge or skill of the future changes in good behaviour, Oxford
student's dictionary (2001).
Language: This can be said to be human or the communication of all creature through the
structural use of word. It is also a system of symbols and rule for writing something.
Second: Learn as an imitation or learned from others.

7. Problems and prospects: Problems, for the purpose of this study refers to those situations whose
presence affects the smooth teaching of English in Secondary School at Macombe Secondary
School in Gondola.
Language Teaching and Laerning: With reference to English Laguage, this means the whole
activities that surround the process of acquiring English as second language by students at
Macombe Secondary School.

8. CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The Concept of Language
This chapter brings a brief discussion upon aspects related to the language in general. According
to (Crystal 1995:307) we are in a world of language. Hardly will a moment pass in our lives
without the use of language to communicate with each other. Whatever people do when they
meet, whether they fight, play, share love, they have to talk. We talk to colleagues, friends,
enemies, students, some form of language is definitely used. Every day of our lives we are not
free from words as we talk face-to-face, telephone, in our dreams or even alone when there is no
one to answer. Language is equally a medium of communication within the family and society.
Every tongue expresses the culture of the society to the complete satisfaction of its members.
This is one basic reason why language is central to learning and life itself (Boyer, 1996). This
may explain why it is said that the success of language education is generally the success of
education. And it is equally true that educational failure is basically a linguistic failure.
Language, therefore, is not just one of the subjects in the curriculum; it is the essential vehicle for
learning communicate with other abroad the country (Greenbaum, 1999).
Language learning
Human beings has the ability to learn and to understand and think about thinks. He has the
capacity to gain and use knowledge. He can as well explore situations, collect information, plan
and execute the plans. Man's high intelligence has also enabled him to evolve a level of linguistic
communication by which life can be regulated. Theodore M.C, (2001) stated that languages
learning requires thoroughly time, patience and practice, it cannot be done solely in school with
the large class but requires few minutes daily practice for individual students.
Therefore, teachers and students should be encouraged to practice this language in their leisure
time in order to master the language.
Problems in English Language Teaching
The above discussed methods are used in teaching English to the students living in
rural background. Let us see the problems faced by the teacher while teaching, interacting,
drillingetc. There are four skills of language learning i.e Listening, Reading, Writing and

9. Speakingand to fulfill these skills one has to take constant and arduous efforts until the goal
isachieved. The problems are as follows:
1. Heterogeneous nature of classroom
This is the major factor to affect the process, the students are of different abilities
and background. It becomes difficult to manage with such class, and for the purpose
of teachingEnglish the teacher has to keep rapport with the class which is by many ways a very
difficulttask. As it is clear that this is not the learners first language, and not foreign language as
well but it has got the status of second language in our region. A very few students are capablean
d understand the core value of English language but rest of the students those are in large number
are quite unable to understand and manage with the learning English. Even the regularity of
students affect the learning process most of the students belong to the village area where there is
no scope for developing any language skills.Thus the heterogeneousnature of the students is the
prominent and major reason in the path of language development.
2. Ignorance about Technology:
After the advent of new technology the language teaching learning process became soft,smooth
and comprehensible .With the help of this teacher can bring the unknown and newtopic to the
senses of students. Colleges which have rural background are not aware of thenew technology.
Even though many colleges have established language laboratory andrunning communicative
courses there but till the students are unaware the real use oftechnology. As this paper focuses on
the teaching learning of English language then it becomes necessary to explain in a few words
about the negligence by the students. Most ofthe students never tern-up to the language
laboratory until they are compelled to do it.
3. Lack of interest and fear:
One of the major obstacle in teaching English is students lack of interest and fear which donot
permit them to take initiative role in language learning and automatically shyness isimbibe in
them. This shy attitude of students restricted to use the communicative approachesi.e.
communicative language teaching, cooperative language learning, task-based languageteaching
etc..Suffice to say that when the teacher asks the questions or trigger-off thediscussion on any
simple topic the students cannot bear it and then wish to bunk the next period. When the drill is

10. taken a very little response is got in return thus the whole purpose isdefeated. Even the use of
TPR method that built around the coordination of speech andaction is failed. Asher states that
“most of the grammatical structure of the target language and hundreds of vocabulary items
can be learned from the skillful use ofimperative by the instructor”. But, due to the lack of
interest on the students’ part it isuseless.
The social use of English Language:
English is a second language in our country as well as official language, but as far as itssocial use
is concerned it has a less importance. In day to day life it is not useful exceptofficial use of it. The
lots of social communication is taken place in concerned language i.e.mother tongue. Due to its
optional or secondary role students could not make use of Englishlanguage. Till it is library
language and not the language of common people but if we takethe importance of English in this
global era into consideration then it is our prominent duty tomake the our students well equipped
with the various skills of English language so that ourstudents would survive in this fast growing
world which gives no place for non English speaker.

11. CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Methodology
The methodology here refers to the method by which the teachers presents his/her materials to the
learners and engages them in the task at hand. Methodology is very vital in every teaching-
learning situation.
For according to Robert. M., (2003) for effective teaching and learning to take place, the skillfull
teacher needs to use the many different methonds and techniques at his command.
Even though is a great diversity in teaching methods and techniques, there is no one of them that
can be regarded as the best for every teaching situation. This is however assumed that a carefully
designed teaching methond can work wonders in making learning more effective.
The Teaching Materials: The teaching materials involves the dominance of textbooks,
dictionaries, chalkboards, workbooks, (which are rarely used) and posters in the teaching of
English Language in Secondary Schools in Macombe Secondary School that has been counter-
productive.
Modern media such as audio and video tapes, language laboratories, programmed texts, flash
cards, computers, magazines and newspapers are not in use. These findings agree with those of
kolawole (1998) who found that the teaching of English Language is bedeviled with many
problems such as inadequate of adequate and useful resources.
3.2. Research Design
The researcher will employ the qualitative research design in order to better interpret and
understand the phenomena under study.
Collins (2004) defines qualitative research design as a study, which focuses mainly on meaning,
experience and understanding across a frame or body of related cases. Since most qualitative
research is by means of interviews, it leaves room for qualifying the responses for the better
interpretation and understanding of the phenomena under study. The present research project
aims to discover the possible the language teaching and language learning ‘British and American
English’ The qualitative research is also helpful since it requires the researcher to go to the field
and collect the data for analysis without involving other participants in the analysis of data. In

12. this approach the researcher is the instrument of measurement, no other individual would fill in, if
it is so, the costs also are not too high.
The researcher will have to go to the field with the instrument of data collections in order to
collect the data to be further analysed. In analysing the data, the researcher will have to focus on
very much on the questionnaire submitted to the teachers and the observation data collected, but
not leaving behind the questionnaire submitted to the English teachers, because also we need to
know at what extent they are aware about the topic concerning.
3.2.1. Population
The target population of this research will be the teachers of English and students According to
Unite for Sight (2009)1, Population is a group of individuals or items that share one or more
characteristics from which data can be gathered and analysed. Therefore, the target population of
this research will be teachers of English language
3.3.2. Sampling and Tools of Research
Accordingly, sampling is the process of taking a subset of subjects that is representative of the
entire population. The sample must have sufficient size to warrant statistical analysis. In this
view, Smith (2004:84) posits that: A sample is the whole subset of the population, which is
actually investigated by researcher and whose characteristics, were generalized to entire
population. Sampling should also determine the best representation of the population, so as to
allow for an accurate generalization of results. In the present work, it should be noted that the
sample consists of 24 students and 07 teachers.
3.4.2. Research Instruments
In the current study, two main sources of data collection are used, that is a questionnaire
distributed to teachers and an interview for the students. The variety of these two data collection
tools helps to better understand the case study, in addition, of involving the main actors: teachers
and learners.

14. 4.0. References
ARNOLD, Irina Vladimirovna. The English Word. Moskva: Vysshaya Shkola, 1986.
Brown, H. Douglas 2001 Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach toLanguage Pedagogy
Longman/ Pearson Education, White Plains, New York
CRYSTAL, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995. English Synonym Dictionary. 15 June 2006.
<http://dico.isc.cnrs.fr/dico/en/search>
RICHARDS, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. 1985. “Method: Approach, design and
procedure”, Chapter 2 in
RICHARDS, Jack C. The Context of Language Teaching Cambridge University Press.
RICHARDS, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. 2001 (2nd edition) Approaches and Methods in
Language Teaching. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press
PRATOR, C.H. and Celce-Murcia, M. 1979. An outline of language teaching approaches. In
Celce-Murcia, M. and McIntosh, L. (Ed.), TeachingEnglish as a Second or Foreign Language.
New York: Newbury
THE BRITISH COUNCIL. (2000). www.britcoun.org/English/enge2000.htm
HARMER, J. (2001). The Practice of the English Language Teaching (3rd ed). Longman:
Pearson Education.
McARTHUR, Tom. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford Universit
Press, 1992.
McARTHUR, Tom. The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002.

15. Research Schedule
# Action and date
Months
J F M A M J J A S O N
1 Collection of information X
2 Start Type the project X
3 Analysis and
interpretation data
X
Research Expenditure
# Material Quantity Unit
Price
Total Price
1 Pen 6 5,00 30,00
2 A4 papers Block 1 150,00 150,00
3 Printing Pages 40 2,00 80,00
4 Transport Journeys 20 30,00 600,00
Total 860,00

16. Appendix I Questionnaire for teachers
School: _________________________________________Teacher's Experience____ years.
Grade teaching: _______
Dear teacher,
the differences between British and American English. You are, therefore, kindly requested
to answer the following questions:
1. According to your own experience, how British and American English came to be different?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Are you familiar with the differences between British and American English?
Yes No
If yes, how? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. How you can differentiate between British and American English?

17. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. According to you, which variety do your students find easier to in language learning? British
English American English Why-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
5. Which variety do you use to teach your students? British English American English
A mix of the two Why------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------
6. Do you think that American English is useful for ELT purposes?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How do you find yourself teaching British and American English? Which one do you prefer or
is suitable?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your assistance

18. Appendix II Questionnaire for the students
The final questionnaire consisted of a part concerning to the students‟ usage of and exposure to
the English language in their leisure time, where they marked the frequency of usage of
television, video games, Internet/on-line games, music and other factors. They could choose
between daily, several times a week, once a week, seldom/never and I don´t know. Finally, there
were five questions about the pupils‟ attitudes towards BrE and AmE, and their possible
preference for any of these varieties. For the final four questions the pupils were supposed to
qualify their answers briefly. There was an option to choose “I don’t know”, and for the final two
questions the option “No” was selectable as well.
The five questions were:
1.What programs do you mostly watch on television, American or British?
2.Which one of these varieties do you prefer, American or British English?
3.Which variety of English do you mostly use yourself, American, British or a mixture of both
varieties?
4.you consider any of these varieties having superior status than the other, American or British
English?
5.Do you consider any of these varieties being more correct to use, American or British English?