A Survey of University Lecturers' Attitude And Approaches To Teaching English Language Grammar in Selected Universities In East Africa Year

Abstract

The present chapter examines the relationship between history, language ideology and attitude towards English language grammar of English lecturers in East African universities towards English grammar teaching. The chapter begins with a survey of the history of English language and the roles of English language education in the six East African countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda context. A sequential explanatory mixed methods research design was used to elicit responses from university lecturers through an adapted version of a 50-item questionnaire based on Burgess and Etherington’s (2002). Two multiple regression analysis tests were run on the data, viz. the socio-demographic and the attitude towards grammar teaching. The results show that socio-demographic characteristics – gender, age, level of education and years of experience, and country – affect the lecturers’ attitude. The category of university, however, does not affect their attitude. The variables of the questionnaire that dealt with grammar, viz. the role of grammar in language (RGT), teachers’ belief in formal (TBF) grammar instructions (GI), declarative grammatical knowledge (DGK), role of practice and correction (RPC), use of authentic texts (UAT) and grammar teaching methods (GTM), all affect the attitudes of the lecturers. There were also cross-country and historical differences as well as language ideological factors that bear on the attitudes of the university lecturers. The present study opens a new front in comparative regional analysis of the English language teaching–learning process in the ESL context in Africa.