School Environment and Methods of Teaching as Correlates of Language Skills Achievement of Pre–Primary School Pupils in Edo State Nigeria

The study investigated the effects of school environment and methods of teaching on language skills achievement of pre – primary school pupils in Edo State. It also investigated the interaction effects of Montessori and played methods and urban and rural environments on pupils' achievement in listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Three urban and three rural areas which were selected from two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were used for the study. Six pre - primary schools were purposively selected for the study. A total of 228 kindergartens 2 pupils intact classes were used for the study which lasted for eight weeks. The study was a pretest, posttest, quasi- experimental control group design with independent variables as methods and school location while achievement in Language Skills Achievement Test (LSAT) was the dependent variable. Descriptive statistics and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the data obtained while the Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) was used as post-hoc test for further significance. Three research questions were answered with three hypotheses, tested at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that the Montessori Method of teaching pre –primary pupils was more effective than the play method. Similarly, urban school pupils achieved higher than their rural counterparts. There was also a significant interaction effect of methods and school location on pupils' academic achievement in Language skills. It was therefore recommended that the Nigerian Government should adopt the Montessori Method as a dominant method of teaching pre – primary school pupils and that pre – primary school owners should provide materials adequately for teaching and learning.