Material Teaching Aids: Enhancement Tool for Teaching Essay Writing in Secondary Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of material teaching aids as enhancement tool for teaching essay writingin secondary schools in Ebonyi State. A 4-point Likert-scale questionnaire was used as the instrument. A trial test wasconducted and tested for reliability and a value of 0.75 was obtained from the test. The instrument was further subjectedto face validation. The population comprised of 1553 language teachers – English, Literature, Igbo and French and out ofthis number 240 teachers were selected using simple random sampling technique and it was done to reflect male andfemale teachers – 120 males and 120 females. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questionswhile Analysis of Covariance ANCOVA was used to test the hypothesis at an alpha level 0.05 of significance. Resultobtained from the data indicated that (1) Most material teaching aids are not available in schools (2) teaching of essaywriting requires application of effective material teaching aids. (3) most teachers do not teach essay and do not apply theuse of material teaching aids. Male and female teachers are not different in application of material teaching aids inteaching essay writing. It was therefore recommended that (1) careful plan of essay writing using effective materialteaching aids should be done. (2)Teachers should be resourceful enough to create improvised materials teaching aids. (3)school authorities and the government should help in procuring material teaching aids in secondary schools to enhancelearning of essay writing.