The teacher occupies a very important position in any school system. According to Akande (2005), teachers’ work is very crucial because without the teacher, there will be no president, no governors, no senators and illiteracy would have covered the whole earth. With the teacher, there is enlightenment, knowledge and civilization in the world. No nation can rise above its teachers. Therefore, the teaching profession is important because it is the job that produces educated and learned people for the development of the society (Wuji, 2005).

Before one becomes a professional English Language teacher, a studious stage is passed through. For instance Uzor (2006) agrees that a teacher passes through the teacher-training college or the University education to become a trained teacher. According to Uzor, the essence of an English language teacher going through rigorous teacher-education or training, is to arm oneself with the appropriate skill, ability and expertise that are inherent in the teaching and learning processes in the subject-matter. As Onyeji (2007) puts it, English language teachers are trained in order to acquire the needed skills of teaching i.e. knowing what to teach (mastery of content) and knowing how to teach (mastery of methodology). The English language teacher, who is trained and experienced, equally knows how to manage the classroom and how to deliver the objectives of what is taught in the classroom. At any stage or school level, a teacher requires to acquire cognate experience and training to effectively deliver the good in the classroom, appropriately as a professional. Abagunde (2004), opined that, students’ performance in English language is largely dependent on the extent of how teaching is carried out in the classroom.

For an English teacher to effectively handle any subject, preparation is needed. This could be in terms of reading through what is to be taught, writing note of lessons, doting appropriately all ‘Ts’ and all ‘I’s’, in order to deliver the lesson effectively and for the students to maximize the objectives of what has been taught. According to Arinze (2004), effective teacher preparation in English language comes as a result of previous professional development the teacher had undergone. This culminates from the strict education the teacher has received which had helped him to master the nitty-gritty of the arts of teaching and classroom management (Greenfield, 2006). Greenfield observes that both the preparation and professional development of a teacher, give the teacher the impetus and academic authority to effectively teach in the classroom, and by extension, the effective learning ability of the students. Greenfield is of the opinion that, effective teaching in English language as a result of effective preparation and professional development, result in effective students’ academic achievement in any subject-matter, at any school level (primary, secondary and tertiary institutions).

A teacher in English language gets prepared to teach by getting professionally developed. For instance Arisekola (2007) opines that, there are some stages of preparing or developing a teacher to get him/her ready for the classroom job of teaching and learning. At the primary school, the teacher receives the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) to teach at the basic level, for the secondary schools, the teacher receives the degree or certificate of Bachelor of Arts in Education (B.A.Ed); or Masters in Education (M.Ed), while for the tertiary institutions, the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) degree is required for the teacher to effectively teach and for the students to perform adequately. The above degrees or certificates, enable the English language teacher to carry out the teaching work without let or hindrance, and for the students to learn with high academic achievement (Nkemjika, 2000).

A teacher in English language needs to be developed professionally through the teacher-educational programmes that are available in the Nigerian higher institutions. According to Lawal (2002), an English language teacher is said to be effectively developed and professionally competent, when he/she is specifically trained or educated in order to train others in the school system, the (learner(s). Aside from knowing how to educate the learner(s), the teacher who is professionally developed, has some personality variables that distinguish him/her from a non-professional, non-trained teacher. Leon (2004), says that a non-professional teacher is a ‘cheat’, because he does not know how to teach and as such, the learner learns poorly under a non-professional, non-trained teacher’s tutelage. Good teaching begets good learning. Trained teachers in English language who are professionally sound, produce students who are academically sound. The primary goal of a teacher is for the students to have high academic laurels and to excel in their educational careers.

Adeleke (2006) is of the view that, teachers’ performance in English language is determined by the performance of the students at the end of any examination(s) or tests in the class. Highly trained, prepared, professional developed and experienced teachers in English language, produce students that are excellent in academic and in characters as well, be it at the primary, secondary or tertiary levels of any educational system. A student is said to have performed well if he/she scores 60% and above in any examination(s) and test(s) organized by the school at the end of any school year or session. A traditional assumption in teaching has been that students require challenging learning tasks, tasks of intermediate difficulty. This idea has been disproved. Research shows that students need and enjoy very high success rates, which come only from tasks at an appropriate difficulty level that are clearly taught and readily comprehended. For example, Good and Good (2001) and Everton (2003), found that high socio-economic status elementary children learned best when the teachers’ questions elicited about 70% correct responses, while low socio-economic status pupils learned best with about 80% correct answers to questions. They concluded that learning proceeds best when the material is some-what new or challenging, yet relatively easy for children to understand and integrate with existing knowledge and skills. Another study carried out by Filby (2005), concluded that, younger students and less able students, almost errorless, performance high during the teaching of an effective teacher, which equally produces better and greater satisfaction to both the teacher and the students.

In effective schools, effective English language teachers monitor students’ progress which takes place at all levels of the school system. Effective English language teachers monitor minute-by-minute comprehension, reading and writing skills of students, their overall success and engagement rates along with the longer term achievement records of every student in the subject-matter. Effective English language teachers monitor achievement scores for individual students, class interactions among students, students’ grade levels and so on. Improvement minded English language teachers also monitor average achievement scores for their students, comparing their performances with the performances of other students in the classrooms in a particular school in order to know whether their students are high achievers in the subject or not (Boot 2003). Whatever level or form, monitoring of students’ progress takes effective school teachers of note to use the achievement information as the basis for modifications of teaching and learning processes or school wide improvement plans in English language (Nwagbara, 2007).

Theoretical Framework

1.2 The Theories of Learning (S-R Theories) (Skinner, 1991)

The (S-R) theory of learning propounded by B.S. Skinner (1991), underpins this study because, it is the theory that concerns learning which is the dependent variable in the study. The most crucial features of the connectionist or S-R theories of learning and more specifically, behavior, are contained in the two important letters ‘S’ and ‘R’ and the hyphen in between them. ‘S’ means stimulus or thinking bond. According to this school of thought, which includes great behaviourists like Watson (1946), Thorndike (1949), Hull (1943), Pavlov (1958) and Skinner (1991), behavior is a transaction between the stimulus or stimuli that impinge on an organism and the resultant responses, the ‘R’. This connotes that learning involves some lasting or permanent changes in the relationships between the ‘S’ and ‘R’ connection. The behaviourists emphasized that all knowledge emanate from the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. For the behaviourists, man is born with the ability and capacity to acquire knowledge and everything he knows comes from his sensory experience. Sensory qualities are connected in the mind, because they occur closely together in time or space as one interacts with his environment. Learning therefore, occurs through close association of events or ideas. For the behaviourists, learning occurs only through experience. Skinner (1991), did not reckon with the existence of the innate ideas in man as being responsible for his knowledge. To him, learning is mechanistic; that is to assume that the mind is machine-like and of simple elements with no mysterious elements and therefore, the product of life experience. Thus, behavior is not learnt but inborn in man. For instance, the baby-sucking behavior as well as the sexual behaviour in man, are not learnt, but inborn behaviours. Although, some behaviours could be explained in terms of maturation. They include walking, speech, flying of birds in the sky as well as swimsging of tadpoles in the sea.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problem inherent in the teaching and learning processes in English language, is as a result of teacher–factor. For instance, the academic performance of students is affected negatively, when teachers do not possess the necessary teaching competences in terms of mastery of the contents or possession of good teaching methods in English language as a subject of study in schools. Also, teachers’ negative attitudes, poor personality, inexperience, poor classroom management, poor personal hygiene, poor teacher–student relationship, lack of communicative skills and poor judgments in the classrooms, contribute greatly to the poor academic achievement of students in English language in the schools. Apart from the above mentioned problems, many English teachers are lazy and therefore, find it difficult to prepare themselves before appearing in the classrooms. This has caused them to be poorly exposed to the course materials and absolute deficiency appearing in their mastery of what to teach poor methodoly on how to teach the subject in the classrooms. By extension, this has caused the great down-ward trends of the quality in the educational standards in Nigerian school system, with the attendant low performance of students in both spoken and written English language in and out of the school.

Many teachers who teach English language in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions these days are “cheats”, because they do not possess the required professional skills, the required cognate experience and the training that is innate in effective classroom teachers. Lack of competence and professional skills, are some of the main factors militating against high academic performance by students in the Nigerian school system.

1.3 Purpose of the Study