Investigating French Teachers’ Professional Pedagogical Skills for Quality Basic Education in Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The French language is the second foreign language in Nigeria and its curriculum is core at the basic school level. Teachers’ professional pedagogical skills are important for quality basic education at this level; hence, this study was carried out. Two research questions were formulated with one hypothesis to guide this study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The research population comprised all the 36 French teachers in the public basic schools in Edo State as at the 2022 school year. All the 36 French teachers were used for the study rated by their French language head teacher. A questionnaire titled: “French Teachers’ Professional Pedagogical Skills for Quality Basic Education Questionnaire (FTPPSQBEQ)” was designed and validated. The reliability coefficient was established using Cronbach Alpha Statistics and a coefficient of 0.83 was obtained for the instrument and the hypothesis was tested using ANOVA statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The researcher personally administered the instrument to the respondents and data collected was analyzed using means and standard deviation. Findings revealed a high level of French teachers’ professional pedagogical skills for quality basic education in Edo State. In the same vein, the level of French teachers’ professional pedagogical skills for quality basic education in Edo State did not vary by teachers’ academic qualification. It was found that quality basic education is a function of teachers’ professional pedagogical skills and therefore recommended that language teacher’s education programme should emphasis pedagogical skills competence.

Keywords: French Teachers, Professional Pedagogic and Quality Basic Education.