College of Social Sciences and Humanities

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Browsing College of Social Sciences and Humanities by Subject "Academic achievement"

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    English language proficiency and academic achievement in Tanzanian secondary schools
    (Sokoine University Of Agriculture, 2011) Wilson,Job
    English, the L01. has fallen victim of blame of some scholars as the cause of poor performance in secondary schools. The study aimed at investigating whether there is a relationship between English Language Proficiency (ELP) and academic achievement in Tanzanian secondary schools. The study further sought to examine the extent of the relationship and the influence of ELP on students’ academic achievement in English and in other school subjects. The data used were obtained by administering an ELPT test and review of students’ reports, and were quantitatively analysed with the help of SPSS. The study revealed that there is a significant weak positive relationship between ELP and students’ academic achievement. It was realised to be significant in English and insignificant in other subjects. Hence, the study contributes to the field of language testing and the results inform test developers and educators that no single variable can predict performance; therefore, ELP can be used in combination with other factors. The study concludes that academic performance is an interplay of several variables and that ELP plays a role in performance but not the major role. The study recommends the government and the public to look beyond language skills when making judgment pertaining to academic students’ success. Also, emphasizes on the improvement of ELP since it is positively connected with academic success. Furthermore, the study recommends future research to explore on non-ELP factors on how they affect performance, as it was observed that it is these factors which affect performance greatly.
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    The Link between English language proficiency and academic performance: a pedagogical perspective in Tanzanian Secondary Schools
    (Sciedu Press, 2012) Wilson, B.; Komba, S.C.
    English, the Language of Instruction (LOI), has fallen victim of blame of some scholars as the cause of poor performance in secondary schools in Tanzania. The blame is directed at English strongly up until recent years (2010 and 2011) when the results of national examinations have been extremely worse. It seems, the public presumes that there is relationship between students’ academic success and their abilities in the LOI. This paper sought to investigate whether there is relationship between English Language Proficiency (ELP) and academic performance in Tanzanian secondary schools. The data used were obtained by administering an ELP test and a review of students’ reports, and were quantitatively analyzed using a computer software, Statistical Package for Software System (SPSS) version 18. The study revealed that there is a significant weak positive relationship between ELP and students’ academic achievement. The relationship was significant in English and insignificant in other subjects which were investigated. On the basis of the findings of this study, it is argued that academic success is a function of several variables and not only proficiency in the LOI. It is therefore recommended that the responsible authorities should invest in improving English language proficiency among students since ELP is positively connected with academic success.