| Purpose of the Study. The major problem of this study was to investigate the perceptions of recent English education graduates (since 1975) of their undergraduate curriculums in Nigerian universities and some problems they encountered within the first five years of their teaching careers. The second problem was to determine the implications of "the perceptions" for the English teacher education programs.; Procedures. A questionnaire was developed, pilot tested, refined, and administered to secondary English teachers in four randomly selected states in Nigeria. The four states were Kwara, Oyo, Lagos, and Plateau. Prior to the analysis of data, a minimum of 65 percent was fixed as the acceptable percentage of questionnaires to be used in the study. Overall, a total of 318 questionnaires (77 percent) were returned. For the purpose of this study, data from 291 respondents (70 percent) were considered as usable. Chi-square, frequency counts, and percentages were used in the statistical analysis of the data.; Major Findings. The following findings were among the information obtained through the questionnaire: (1) Two greatest problems of the graduates were "lack of proper financial support for purchasing audio visual aids, text-books etc.," and "too many students in classes." A computation of Chi-square statistics (X('2) value = 16.92) revealed that the problems were significant of .05 level. (2) Two hundred or 69 percent responded that English teachers should be certified at the level they teach (junior secondary or senior secondary level). (3) In the Subject Matter Area, the following courses are in need of improvement: (a) English Composition, (b) African Oral Literature, (c) Literary Research Methods, and (d) Creative Writing. (4) Two courses that provided the respondents with adequate choices in the Professional Education Area were: (a) History of Education and (b) Sociology. A sizeable majority desired more choice of courses in the following areas: (a) Child Psychology, (b) Philosophy of Education, (c) Education Psychology, and (d) Testing and Grading. (5) One hundred percent of the respondents sanctioned the necessity of an "early observation of English teaching prior to student teaching." (6) Although professors and advisors/supervisors were generally rated as "excellent," "good," or "fair," students felt improvement is needed in the following areas: (a) availability for individual conference, (b) assistance in meeting course requirements, (c) assistance in clarifying job or career goal, and (d) assistance provided in solving program problems. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI... |
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