Textual Role Awareness in the Improvement of Writing Skills of Senior Secondary School Students in Nguru, Yobe State, Nigeria.

ABSTRACT This study was conducted on textual role awareness in the improvement of writing skills of senior secondary school students’ in Nguru, Yobe state Nigeria. The research was guided by the following objectives: i) to determine the level of awareness of different textual roles in students writing, ii) To determine the level of writing skills, and iii) to establish the relationship between textual roles awareness and improvement in the writing skill by students. In the conduct of the study, two secondary schools were selected from Nguru, Yobe state, Nigeria. The research design used was an experimental design. The data was collected using experimental tests involving pretest and posttest exercises. Simple Random sampling was used to select the respondents from the target population. In determining the level of awareness of different textual roles in students writing, the pretest results revealed that the mean value was .2483 .20583 which was low while the posttest mean value was .7133 .21462 which was high. Objective two, was to determine the level of writing skills, the mean value of the pretest was .2820 .36965 is low while the posttest mean value was .8720 .15181 is high. The third objective was to establish relationship between textual role awareness and improvement of writing skills, the Pearson Correlation Statistics revealed .453 sig. 2tailled which implied that there was a significant relationship between textual role awareness and improvement of writing skills of students. Based on the findings made by this study, the following recommendations were proffered; In order to improve on textual role awareness and writing skills, Schools’ Managements should ensure that English teachers strictly follow the syllabus in teaching so that all aspects of different text structures such as Recipe, Narrative, Argumentative, Descriptive, Formal and Informal letters etc. are appropriately covered, the relevant teaching methods and materials such as textbooks and Teaching Aids should be employed by English teachers, teachers should consider students’ previous knowledge so as to ensure that current knowledge is properly assimilated by the students (Schema Theory), finally, all teachers employed to teach English should be well qualified and tested.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ............................................................................................................................. i

APPROVAL ................................................................................................................................... ii

DEDICATION...............................................................................................................................iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT............................................................................................................. iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ....................................................................... v

LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................... ix

ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................... ix

CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................... 1

1.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background of the study. .......................................................................................................... 1

1.1.1 Historical perspective............................................................................................................. 2

1.1.2 Theoretical perspective. ......................................................................................................... 5

1.1.3 Conceptual perspective .......................................................................................................... 7

1.1.4 Contextual perspective........................................................................................................... 9

1.2 Statement of the problem........................................................................................................ 10

1.3 Purpose of the study................................................................................................................ 10

1.4 Objectives of the study............................................................................................................ 11

1.5 Research Questions................................................................................................................. 11

1.6 Research Hypotheses.............................................................................................................. 11

1.7 Scope of the study................................................................................................................... 11

1.7.1 Geographical scope.............................................................................................................. 11

1.7.2 Content scope....................................................................................................................... 11

1.8 Significance of the study......................................................................................................... 12

CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................................................ 13

LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................. 13

2. 0 Introduction............................................................................................................................ 13

2.1 Theoretical Review ................................................................................................................. 13

2.1.1 Schema Theory .................................................................................................................... 13

2.1.2 The Role of Grammar in Improving Student's Writing ....................................................... 15

2.3 Related literature..................................................................................................................... 19

2.3.1 The role(s) of different texts in writing................................................................................ 19

2.3.2 Determining students level of writing skill.......................................................................... 23

2.3.3 The relationship between textual roles awareness and improvement in writing skill by 

students ......................................................................................................................................... 25

2.3.4 The different types of writings............................................................................................. 27

vii

2.3.5 Summary of the Gap ............................................................................................................ 31

CHAPTER THREE.................................................................................................................... 32

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................. 32

3.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 32

3.1 Research design ...................................................................................................................... 32

3.2 Sampling Method.................................................................................................................... 32

3.2.1 Target Population................................................................................................................. 33

3.2.2 Sample Size.......................................................................................................................... 33

3.3 Research Instrument................................................................................................................ 34

3.4 Validity of the instrument. ...................................................................................................... 34

3.4.1 Reliability of the Instrument ................................................................................................ 34

3.5 Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 34

3.6 -Data Analysis......................................................................................................................... 34

3.7 Ethical Considerations............................................................................................................ 35

3.8 Limitation of the study............................................................................................................ 35

CHAPTER FOUR....................................................................................................................... 36

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION .......................................... 36

4.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 36

4.1 Determining the level of awareness of different textual role(s) in students‘ writing. (Pretest 

and posttest) .................................................................................................................................. 36

4.2 To determine the level of writing skills of the students.......................................................... 37

4.3 To establish the relationship between textual role awareness and improvement of writing skill 

by students .................................................................................................................................... 37

4.4 Grading for awarding marks on textual awareness................................................................. 38

CHAPTER FIVE ........................................................................................................................ 39

DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................. 39

5.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 39

5.1 summary of the findings ......................................................................................................... 39

5.1.1 Level of awareness of different textual roles in students‘ writing....................................... 39

5.1.2 To determine the level of students‘ writing skills................................................................ 40

5.1.3 The relationship between textual roles awareness and improvement of writing skills........ 41

5.2 The Theory of Schema............................................................................................................ 42

5.3 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 43

5.4 Recommendations................................................................................................................... 43

5.5 Recommendations for further research................................................................................... 44

REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 45

APPENDIX I EXPERIMENTAL TEST .................................................................................... 53

APPENDIX II EXPERIMENTAL TEST.................................................................................... 54

APPENDIX IIIA: TRANSMITTAL LETTER............................................................................. 56

APPENDIX IIIB: ACCEPTANCE LETTER............................................................................... 57

APPENDIX IV: PRETEST-TEST AND POST TEST DATA ON TEXTUAL ROLE 

AWARENESS AND IMPROVEMENT OF WRITING SKILLS (SCORE 1=PASS 0=FAIL) 58