EFFECTS OF THINK-PAIR-SHARE STRATEGY ON FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN NARRATIVE COMPOSITION WRITING IN PANKSHIN, PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined compound words found in online posts on the COVID-19 pandemic with the view to identifying and analyzing the compounds according to their word classes and structures. The methodology adopted was content analysis and the purposive sampling technique was used in generating data for the study. Through this sampling technique, the available compound words were identified and analysed. The findings revealed that in the formation of compounds related to the COVID-19 pandemic, two types of compounds, namely, noun compounds and verb compounds are used, with noun compounds being the most common. It was also observed that the process of compounding is unlimited and there was no structural limitation on the recursivity of compounds in English. The study maintained that the orthographic structure of compounds was inconsistent. It further noted that as COVID-19 remains in the human life, more compound lexemes continue to emerge through news articles published massively on the internet, especially in social network sites.The poor achievement of NCE II students in narrative composition writing evidenced by available statistics of 45% recorded over 5 years, reveals the need for teachers to use modern methods of teaching such as the think- pair-share strategy. This research investigated the effects of Think-Pair-Share strategy on students’ achievement in narrative writing in Federal University of Education Pankshin, Plateau State, Nigeria in the areas of idea generation, idea organisation, punctuation, paragraphing and editing. Five objectives, five research questions, and two hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted the quasi-experimental design, which utilised a non-equivalent pre-test post-test design. The population of the study comprised 361 NCE II students in the 2023/2024 academic session, while the sample consisted of 143 NCE II students. Asimple random sampling technique was used. The instrument used for data collection was a Composition Writing Achievement Test (CWAT) adapted by the researcher from Anyebe (2017). The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The findings of the study revealed that students from the experimental group achieved higher than the control group in terms of paragraphing, and punctuation. The study recommended that teachers of English Language should use the think-pair-share strategy in teaching composition writing to students, as it has proven to improve students’ achievement in narrative composition writing. The study further recommends that the think-pair-share strategy is an effective method for improving writing skills and recommends its implementation by teachers of English Language and students to enhance their skills in writing coherent compositions. This study will contribute to the growing body of knowledge by demonstrating the influence of think-pair-share in improving students’ achievement in paragraphing and editing.