Interview, Questionnaire and Test

Interview
The researcher employed interview as the second tool for gathering information from both pupil’s and their parents. Interviews according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of current English are seen as “asking a person series of questions in a formal way usually in order to obtain required information about them”.

The researcher conducted a face – to – face interviews with the parents and the pupils. The pupils sampled could not read nor were write and the parents also illiterate that, they could neither read nor write.

The interview guide for the pupils was centered on the problems the researcher thought were contributing to their poor reading and pronunciation. The interview helped the researcher to come closely to the causes of the problems. The interview for pupil’s and parents will be found in appendix 1 and 2 respectively.

About the parents’ interview, five questions were asked. The questions were centered on areas the researcher felt were also contributing to the pupils’ predicaments. This includes parent’s relationships with their wards, teachers and the extent to how they help their wards with learning materials. The motive behind the interview was to get the list of the information leading to the problems so that the problems can be put rest. See appendix 2 for the detailed.

Questionnaire
Questionnaire is a list of printed questions to a number of people in order to collect information on a topic. The questions on the questionnaire were both close ended and open ended. The questionnaire was meant for the class teacher who helped the researcher in gathering information leading to the cause of the problem.

The class Six (6) teacher was given the questionnaire in view of the fact that she is currently teaching the pupil’s. The researcher made use of the questionnaire because the teacher can give written responses. The researcher is also certain that, the questionnaire reaches its destination.

That is being received by the respondent. The researcher is also full control of how long the data collection exercise will last. This is because she knows or has planned beforehand what places to go to, when to go to the places and how it will take her.

To add to the above, there is a very high, if not complete percentage return of the questionnaire from the respondents. This is because the researcher collects back the forms as soon as they are filled out. It also gives opportunity for the respondents to obtain clarification for questions she has doubts with.

The questionnaire administered seeks to know whether the teacher realized the pupil’s hard problems in reading and what attempt is being put in place to address the problems. The questionnaire was given to the teacher with the instructions at the top of it. The teacher was requested to tick or write what was requested of her. For the detailed questionnaire for the teacher see appendix 3.

Test
According to Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary, a test is “an examination of knowledge or ability, consisting of questions for them to answer or activities for them to carry out”. Test can also be seen as a form of task issued with the view of obtaining information on the pupil’s performances and the effectiveness of intervention activities carried out. Tests also allowed people to demonstrate their abilities or competencies in a specific area.

Test can also allow us to describe and observe the characteristics of a person. We gather information from pupil’s through test.
The researcher organized a pre – test and a post – test. The post – test are located at the appendix 4. The results of the pre – test and the post – test are also located at the appendix 5 and 6 respectively.

The researcher’s pre – test sought to verify the impact the lesson had on the pupils. She wanted to know whether the objectives of the lesson were achieved. She did this by asking the pupil’s to do the followings.
(1) Pronounce the new words listed on the chalkboard. Example, Democratic, peace building, tolerance, disagreement etc.
(2) Flash cards containing the new words were also used to test if pupils could identify the words.
(3) They were also made to read sentences lived from the passage. Example; peace building and democratic living.

Conflict is a disagreement between two or more people.
Peace building avoids conflict etc.
It is very disappointing to realize that from the pre – test none of the pupils could pronounce more than two words among the new words. The sentence too, they could not read correctly. In fact this situation calls for much concern. A speedy attention of course is needed to salvage the pupil’s from this predicament.

After actions were advanced to arrest this unfortunate situation, another test was conducted.
This was to find out the effectiveness of the intervention and to find out whether there had been a change or not. The test conducted after the intervention is known as the post – test. It is very important to note that, the pre – test and the post – test were of the same standard or a parallel one. (That is, of the same difficulty level, but differs in form or wording).

Pre – Intervention
The pre – intervention is the procedure the researcher adopted in trying to diagnose the perceived problem before the actual intervention.

During the researcher’s teaching practice service at Apeyime R.C Primary Six (6), she witnessed the class teacher taught reading aloud for two consecutive times. The teacher wanted to find out what actually was causing the problem. How was the teacher contributing to this problem? Also how are the pupils also contributing to the existence of this problem?

During the class teacher’s lesson delivery, what the researcher observed was very discouraging. Instead of the teacher presenting the vocabulary to the pupil’s through the correct approach, he only listed them on the board, read through for three times and asked pupils to read after him.

What needed to be done was for the class teacher to go through the following;

(a) Presenting vocabulary: the teacher mentions the words clearly for more than once. At the words using he then teaches the meaning of demonstration, pictures, real objects, chalkboard drawing etc. He continued by drilling pupils with the words to enable them get the correct pronunciation. Write the words on the board for pupils to realize how it is spelt.

(b) Drilling: the teacher’s task here is to equipped pupils with the ability to pronounce the words correctly. The teacher mentions the words for pupils to listen to. They then repeat the words after the teacher in groups, in rows and with individuals selected at random.

The pupils are now given opportunity to say the words with teacher’s intervention.
(c) Eliciting: this is to find out the pupils understanding of the words they learnt.
(d) Consolidating Vocabulary: this is to stabilize the vocabularies learnt by pupils into their system.
He then read two times for pupils to hear and ask pupil’s to read after him. The teacher verbally explain the meaning of the key words without using demonstration, pictures, sentences etc. to teach the meaning of the vocabularies.

The pupils were now required to read for the teacher to hear. It was so much appalling and disheartening to see these pupils not able to pronounce one word correctly. This compelled the class teacher to resort to the use of cane or to drill the pupils to read. This method of teaching affected the pupils a lot.