But, in order to identify the difficult teaching and learning topics in SS3 physics, chemistry and English language curricula, we have to look into how the definitions of the word curriculum have been offered by different educationists.
Curriculum, according Hosford (2005) in Badmus (2006), is a set of experiences planned to influence learners towards the goal of an organization. However, Lawis and Niel (2002) cited in Akanybon (2007) define curriculum as a set of intentions about opportunities for engagement of person to be educated with other persons and with things (all bearers of information, process, techniques and values) in certain arrangement of time and space.
On the other hand, Tanner and Tanner (2000) in Akangbon (2007) see curriculum as the cumulative tradition of organized knowledge, modes of thought, a planned learning environment, cognitive/affective content and process, an instructional plan, instructional outcomes and a technological system of production.
Therefore, the content of the curriculum and the methods employed to present the content have to be determined by the nature of the society and the nature of the learner.Chemistry is one of the three main branches of pure sciences, the other two being biology and physics. Chemistry deals with the composition, properties and uses of matter. It probes into the principles governing the changes that matter undergoes. So, it is not, of course, for those who teach chemistry in schools to concern themselves directly with the economic future of the nations for which they work. But it remains a fact that students want to do useful things and that they will profit from being shown how they can contribute to a dynamic part of their country’s industry. This provides an added reason for teaching chemistry in school.
The teaching and learning of chemistry, on the other hand, is not a simple job for those who teach the subject and learners. The fact that some terms in chemistry cannot be observed or be related to the physical activities, makes the teaching and learning of some topics in chemistry very difficult for teachers and students. In other words, the teaching and learning of some topics in chemistry involves mathematical expression and critical thinking.
Physics is the science concerned with the study of physical objects and substances and of natural forces such as light, heat and measurement. As physics is based on exact measurements, every such measurement requires two things; first a member or quantity, and secondly a unit. All branches of it deal inevitably with difficulties whose solution, are often envisaged to benefit humanity. Unfortunately, some students in SS3 hardly register the subject in the SSCE examinations because they find some of its topics very difficult to understand. Many reasons, according to Charles and Chester (2001), might be broadly deduced for students’ poor performance in physics and these included: Psychological factors like confidence, cognitive styled decisiveness, ideational fluency, intellectual ability attitude, curiosity and so on.
English language is the central subject from the post primary school level because it is the medium of instruction for all other subjects. It is therefore, the servicing subject for all other subjects. According to Anibueze (2007), there are many problem teachers and students encounter in course of teaching and learning English language. Such problems are classifies as:- The problem in Equivocation: it refers to the problem students and teachers encounter when they read meaning of words, sentences and passages.-
-The problem in elocution: it refers to the problems students envisage in their practice of oral delivery or in usage of the English language.-
-The problems in transliteration: This is a problem that comes up because of the interference of the mother tongue-
-The problem in expression: This is a problem in which people do not falls in a way or takes a process other people will understand and do not show their ideas, opinions, talks, feelings and information very clearly. And others. Anibueze (2007) says that, there are factors militating against the effective teaching and learning of English language and other subjects.
Such factors are:–
-There are the problems of poor development of listening and speaking skill.
-Teachers have no recorded utterance in Standard English for the teaching of the language.
-There is no teacher’s model reading for students to listen to in the classroom.
-No radio or television set has been brought into the class for students are urged to listen to each other in English but most often, they listen to all sorts of corrupt English or English full of errors.
-Some student’s most often, code-switch or code-mix when using the language.
-Sometime they pick nonsense varieties of English from home video, radio, television programmers and films, many of what they listen to is awful.- In speaking-skills their spoken English is influenced by their native speech habit and their linguistic community. In other words, their mother-tongue interferes in their spoken words.
EDITOR'S SOURCE: Project Tittles
Posted: at | |