Language contents and their influence on SSII students’ communicative competence in Benue State, Nigeria

The study investigated the influence of language contents on SSII students’ communicative competence in Benue State, Nigeria. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 40 schools for the study. Six hundred students were selected and grouped into 5 students in each group for effective communicative activities such as speaking and writing. Ten lesson plans each were selected through simple random sampling from 40 English language teachers and evaluated in order to ascertain the contents, methods and assessment strategies used by teachers. The instruments used for data collection were Evaluation Checklist of Teachers’ Lesson Plans (ECLTLP) and Students’ Communicative Achievement Test (SCAT). The scores of students in both speaking and writing (communicative competence) were analyzed and compared with the range of contents that teachers exposed students to. The research questions were answered in percentage, mean and standard deviation and the hypothesis was tested using ANOVA at 0.05 Alpha level. The findings revealed that teachers taught communicative language contents such as speaking, reading, writing and listening as well as vocabulary/lexis and structure. However, result showed that task on speaking had the highest frequency (96/26.3%) followed by reading (84/20.7%), while writing (50/13%) and listening had low frequency (15/4.3%). Vocabulary/lexis and structure had 79/17.9% each. It also revealed that there was significant influence of communicative language contents on students’ communicative competence. It was therefore recommended among other things that teachers should employ the use of communicative approach in selecting contents. They should also balance the teaching of communicative skills by focusing on listening and writing skills. Teachers should engage learners in classroom activities for the purpose of improving students’ communicative competence.