THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING ENGLISH The LANGUAGE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ABEOKUTA SOUTH, OGUN STATE

Abstract

Although English is Nigeria’s official language of education, government, and public life, student performance in the subject remains persistently poor at the secondary school level, and the specific classroom-level challenges that produce this outcome have received limited empirical attention outside major urban centres such as Lagos, Ibadan, and Abuja. Anchored in Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System and Mercer and Littleton’s dialogic framework of exploratory talk, this study addressed this gap by investigating the challenges confronting English language teachers in public secondary schools in Abeokuta South Local Government Area, Ogun State, Nigeria. The study adopted a quantitative descriptive survey design. Ten public secondary schools were purposively selected from the eighteen schools operating within the Local Government Area, after which five English language teachers were randomly selected from each school, yielding a total sample of 50 respondents. Data were collected using a structured, researcher-designed questionnaire administered through Google Forms, and were analysed using descriptive statistics, specifically frequency counts, percentages, mean scores, and standard deviations. The findings revealed that all five challenge areas investigated – instructional materials and resources, class size and classroom environment, mother-tongue interference, student attitude and motivation, and teacher professional development – were significantly perceived by respondents, with an overall mean score of 4.10 on a five-point scale. Class size and classroom environment emerged as the most significant challenge (cluster mean = 4.21), with 76% of respondents reporting class sizes of 41 or more students. Limited access to professional development was the second most pressing challenge (cluster mean = 4.17), with 72% of respondents confirming they had not attended any relevant training in three years. Inadequate instructional materials, mother-tongue interference, and low student motivation were equally significant, each returning cluster means above 4.00. The study recommends urgent government investment in instructional resources, the establishment of structured, LGA-level professional development programmes, and a review of classroom allocation policies in Southwest Nigeria.

Keywords: English language teaching, public secondary schools, mother-tongue interference, professional development