RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND THEIR COMPREHENSION OF SOME CONCEPTS IN ECONOMICS.

Umaru Shuaibu

Abstract


The study was carried out to examine the relationship between English language proficiency and comprehension of concepts in Economics by secondary school students. The study was prompted by the massive failure recorded in both NECO and WAEC that covers all the subjects in the curriculum including Economics. The sample of the study consisted of 200 secondary school students who were in their SS two. The sample was randomly selected from two private schools in Gombe local government area of Gombe state. The choice of these schools was informed by the popular assumptions that students in private schools receive good teaching and perform relatively better than their counterparts in the public schools. The instrument used for data collection was teacher made tests prepared by the researcher. The tests were administered on the sample at the end of their third term after all the teaching and revisions for the term took place. After the tests, the scores obtained in both English language and Economics were recorded and correlated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Regression Analysis. The outcome of the analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship (0.699) between English language proficiency and comprehension of concepts in Economics. Based on the outcome of the study, it was recommended that the teaching and learning of English language should receive the required attention because without the good mastery of the language skills, the learning of concepts in Economics and indeed the learning of other subjects in the curriculum would be very difficult. 

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