Investigation of Pupils’ English Language Abilities in Tanzania: The Case of English Medium Primary Schools

Abstract

This article is based on the study which sought to assess pupils’ abilities in written English language skills amongEnglish medium primary school pupils in Tanzania. The objectives of the study were to examine pupils’ abilities inconstructing complete and meaningful sentences; to investigate pupils’ abilities in using tenses; to assess pupils’abilities in using punctuation marks; and to examine pupils’ abilities in spelling words. The respondents were 240pupils from four English medium primary schools, based in Mbeya and Dar es Salaam Cities. The data collectionprocess was done using an achievement test and the collected data were subjected to item analysis in whichfrequencies and percentages of students exhibiting the specified abilities were computed. The findings indicated thatthe majority of the pupils had serious problems in the tested English language abilities. It was recommended, amongothers, that English medium primary schools should recruit teachers who are proficient in English language so thatthey could serve as role models to the pupils.