Investigation of Pupils’ english language abilities in Tanzania: The case of english medium primary schools

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Date

2015-02-14

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Abstract

This article is based on the study which sought to assess pupils’ abilities in written English language skills among English medium primary school pupils in Tanzania. The objectives of the study were to examine pupils’ abilities in constructing complete and meaningful sentences; to investigate pupils’ abilities in using tenses; to assess pupils’ abilities in using punctuation marks; and to examine pupils’ abilities in spelling words. The respondents were 240 pupils from four English medium primary schools, based in Mbeya and Dar es Salaam Cities. The data collection process was done using an achievement test and the collected data were subjected to item analysis in which frequencies and percentages of students exhibiting the specified abilities were computed. The findings indicated that the majority of the pupils had serious problems in the tested English language abilities. It was recommended, among others, that English medium primary schools should recruit teachers who are proficient in English language so that they could serve as role models to the pupils.

Description

World Journal of English Language, 2015; 5 (1): 56-64

Keywords

English language abilities, English medium primary schools, English language skills, Tanzania

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