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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Nigeria is a highly diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic country, comprising of nationalities that come from diverse linguistic backgrounds, with over 450 ethnic groups and languages (Beresford, 2010). It is therefore inevitable that the multicultural nature of Nigerian education system will continue to grow in size and diversity.  In Nigeria today, English is not only the medium of instruction in the educational system, but has become a lingua franca. In the present-day Nigeria, schooling means a classroom for an increasing student population from diverse ethnic groups and languages. Apart from students who speak one of the major indigenous languages ( Igbo,Hausa, Yoruba), there are others from ethnic minorities and, all of them have come to the classroom to learn English as a medium of instruction. Ultimately, they must reconcile crossing cultures since they have become multicultural in school settings. Therefore, the crucial factor is the need for a better and effective method of teaching English in Junior secondary schools for students’ better performance in English in this multicultural L2 classrooms. According to Udoh (2009), reward and punishment have continued to generate controversies among educational psychologists. Thus, there is a continued debate over which method between reward and punishment should be applied in learning process to bring about change in desirable behaviour.  Durojaiye (2002) was of the view that the two method reward and punishment should be properly applied in teaching and learning process in order to facilitate learning. While some people advocate the use of the two as means of controlling behaviors of students by the teachers, others may consider the application of reward only as the application of punishment does the desire behavioural change. There is a consensus, however, among many scholars that the problem lies with the administration of these techniques. In this chapter therefore, the background of what motivated the researcher to go into this study is the role of reward and punishment in teaching and learning English in Junior secondary school students in Onitsha-North Local Government Area of Anambra State. Nevertheless, the classroom is the cradle as well as the grave yard of genius (Boekaerts, 2012). In other words, whatever the truth of this assertion, society no doubt expects certain outcomes from the classroom situation for the students. Thus, the student’s work at school is not merely determined by his intellectual capacity, his knowledge and abilities in various subjects, but also by motivation to learn. If the students are motivated strongly enough, their desire to learn may prove strong enough to keep them from the rank of the swelling army of school dropouts. (Ilegbusi, 2013). Furthermore, student’s attainment of a goal is regarded as important purpose of education, then, the factor that provides the best learning situation  should be considered as essential part of educational factor. Walker (2008) opined that punishment and reward are those factors that determine students best learning situations, thus; both factors and techniques of motivation have strong effects on students’ performance in any subject mater.

Statement of Problem

The rate of mass failure of secondary school students in English Language, not only in the class examination but also in the WAEC and NECO examination has called for serious thought among stakeholders. Sometimes the cause of this mass failure or low performance would be attributing to students laziness, family background, and lack of good and adequate teaching method as well as incompetence on the part of the teachers. But despite efforts made, performances are still discouraging even when qualified teachers with appropriate teaching methods are employed. This is why this research work is carried out to ascertain the effectiveness of using reward and punishment as forms of motivation in teaching and learning English in junior secondary school in Onitsha-North local government of Anambra State.

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