Factors influencing lack of interest in the English communication skills course among students in Tanzanian technical training institutions

The purpose of the study was to examine and establish the factors influencing lack of interest in the communication Skills/English course among students in Tanzanian technical training institutions. The study was guided by six main research questions which sought to establish whether or not:(a) the students' lack of interest in the course could be attributed to their ignorance of the status and roles of English in Tanzania; (b) the students' lack of interest in the course could be attributed to the students' ignorance of the purposes for which the course is taught; (c) the students' lack of interest in the course could be attributed to the shortage of instructional materials in the colleges; (d) the students' lack of interest in the course could be attributed to the unsuitability of the syllabus of the course to the needs of the learners; (e) the students' lack of interest in the course could be a result of a lack of competent tutors of the course; (f) the students' lack of interest in the course could be associated with the fact that English hardly forms an obligatory, dominant or even ambient linguistic environment whenever the students find themselves after their studies. The study covered the three main Technical Colleges of Arusha, Dar es Salaam and Mbeya, all of whose total population was 992 students and 232 tutors out of whom a sample of 164 students and 37 tutors was selected by stratified and random sampling techniques. The findings revealed the majority of the students to be quite aware not only of the status and roles of English in Tanzania, but also acknowledged the importance of the language in education as well as in science and technology (since nearly all knowledge on science and technology is acquired in English), in international relations and trade, and even in some aspects of their jobs. Moreover, knowledge of English has been shown to be a necessity not only to the learners, but even to the tutors in order to ensure that there can be effective teaching. Interestingly, the factors identified as the ones influencing students' lack of interest in the English Communication Skills course include: (a) the unsuitable syllabus of the course most of whose content is grammar-oriented, thus rendering it useless as far as the needs of the learners are concerned; (b) lack of instructional materials and sufficient number of competent tutors of the course, especially those specialized in the teaching of ESP or Communication Skills; (c) students' negative attitude to the course, and lack of motivation to learn it;(d) the course being optional and non-examinable at the end of training, (e} and the uncertainty of the applicability of the knowledge derived from the course due to the limited use of the English language as a result of Kiswahili dominating as a national as well as an official language of Tanzania. The implications of the study are that unless some corrective measures are taken to improve the course and the conditions in which it is offered, the tendency of students to shun away from it always persist. Among the corrective measures suggested are: reviewing the syllabus to make it more relevant to the needs of the learners; employing a sufficient number of well trained tutors, particularly those specialised in the teaching of English for specific purposes (ESP) or Communication Skills; regular attendance of Communication Skills tutors at workshops and seminars on the teaching of ESP or Communication Skills to keep the tutors up-to-date; to ensure availability of relevant instructional materials and sufficient tuition time; and above all, to ensure that the course is made compulsory and examinable like the other subjects at the end of training in order to motivate students to take it more seriously.