The Influence of Student's Social Background on the Acquisition of Fluency in Written English
Date
2005-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tangaza University College/Saint Mary university of Minnesota(Nairobi Campus)
Abstract
This research addresses the topic of the Influence of Student's Social Background on the
Acquisition of Written English. The research was carried out at Parklands Boys' High School.
The school's head teacher, the deputy head teacher, English teachers and selected students
participated in the study. Questionnaires and interviews were the instruments used to gather
raw data from the field.
The following objectives guided the research:
I. To examine teachers' knowledge of their students' social background.
2. ro identify ways in which parents and teachers can help students improve their writing
skill.
3. To enable students find ways of improving their written work.
4. To explore the various variables that inhibits students from writing competently.
The research findings revealed that teachers are aware of students' social background. The
purpose of this knowledge is to establish how to help the students in their written English. The
study, however, revealed that teachers have to do more work in order to help students improve
their English.
The method of teaching ought to be examined and reviewed in order for students to participate
fully and have interest in the subject. Teachers also ought to give students more assignments
and model the use of English language to them. Teachers should to make conscious effort to
achieve this for the effective learning to take place within the students. The knowledge of
English language is extremely important in the life of students and every teacher taking the subject seriously should make this known to them. Students are to be discouraged from using
sheng and Kiswahili in the classroom as well as on the school compound. They should be
disciplined so that they may realize the importance of English. Teachers should engage students
in various practices that can improve their skills in writing but their reading, speaking and
comprehension of given materials.
Description
Keywords
Student's Social Background, Acquisition of Fluency, Written English, 1Crashen 's Monitor Theory, Contrastive Hypothesis