Factors Affecting Effective Teaching And Learning English In Tanzania Ward Secondary Schools: A Case Study Of Rungwe District

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to examine the factors affect effective teaching and learning English in ward secondary schools at Rungwe Districts in Mbeya Region.

Seven ward community secondary schools and district educational office (secondary) were visited. 404 respondents were selected randomly and purposefully to form the population sample for the study. For the sake of confidentiality, the researcher used alphabetical letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G to represent the names of those secondary schools. The respondents included heads of schools, subject teachers and form II up to form IV students from all seven secondary schools. All those schools were day school except D secondary school which was owned jointly by three districts named Rungwe, Kyela and Ileje. That school had hostels; hence parents were contributing money for food.

The instrument used to collect data were questionnaires, unstructured interviews, observation and documentation that were data relevant to the study.

The outcome showed that poor infrastructure, low quality of teachers, lack of teaching-learning resources, shortage of competent English language teachers, lack of motivations to teachers and students, lack of confidence, incompetence in phonology and grammar, and lack of exposure to English affect teaching and learning English in secondary schools, specifically in ward secondary schools. In addition to the above shortcomings the research revealed that English as medium of instructions in Tanzanian secondary schools is so active to teachers and students; instead Swahili language has dominated most of the activities that are taking place within the school compound. The situation of ineffectiveness of English in secondary schools affects to a great extent, the teaching and learning of English.