Role of Social and Economic Status of marginalized Group in Developing English Language Proficiency

Abstract

The present thesis entitled “Role of Social and Economic Status of Marginalized Groups in Developing English Language Proficiency” aims to find out the proficiency of marginalized children in terms of different variables:boys vs. girls and Kathmandu vs. Arghakhanchi districts. It also aims to find out the role of the English language in uplifting their social and economic status. Thus, this study is an endeavor to point out the need and importance of the English language in the children of marginalized groups in Nepal. It helps to identify the affecting variables that hinder the acquisition of the English language of those children. For the collection of the data regarding the proficiency of the English language in the children of marginalized group a set of test items was prepared from‘My Primary English’ grade-4 which was given to the children of marginalized group studying in grade-5. Then, 100students, 50 from Kathmandu and 50 from Arghakhanchi were selected. Out of50, 25 were girls and 25 were boys from each district. They were selected byusing purposive non-random sampling. A set of questionnaire was preparedand provided to each of the sampled population to find out their social and economic status. It was found that socio-economic condition of marginalized children had directly affected in the development of the English language proficiency. Similarly, the findings show that the marginalized children in Kathmandu had higher degree of proficiency in the English language in comparison to the proficiency of the marginalized children in Arghakhanchi.Likewise, the girls’ proficiency in comparison to the boys’ proficiency in the English language was higher. The thesis consists of four chapters: Introduction,Methodology,Analysis and Interpretation and Findings and Recommendations.The first chapter ix contains general background of the study, review of related literature,objectives, significance of the study and definition of specific terms. The second chapter is concerned with the research design, sources of data, sample size, sampling procedure, research tools, process of data collection, and limitations of the study. The nucleus of the research is included in the third chapter. It includes in detail analysis and interpretation of the data. The fourth chapter contains the findings and recommendations of the study.