CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ORAL ENGLISH IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS

0
999

CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ORAL ENGLISH IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)

 

CHAPTER ONE

  • INTRODUCTION
    • BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Human beings are the only creatures endowed with the wonderful capacity to speak. Speech is a great blessing but it can also be a great curse, for it helps us make our intensions and desires known to other fellows. People use a language as a medium of communication. English language is one of these languages. It is the most widely spoken language in the world.

English language has been spoken in one form or the another in this country since the sixteenth century. It began as a language of trade at the country ports and since communication is a two way process some Nigerians out of necessity began to attempt to replace Portuguese based English pidgin with an English based one.

The missionaries came along in the middle of the nineteenth century and because of the need for interpreter, began to teach the English language in school. The final phase of the early contact of Nigeria with the English language came with colonization of the country when basically the colonial government gave support to the efforts of the missionaries in establishing system of education in which English was a very important constituent, English language has been taught formally in Nigerian schools for close to a century and a half admittedly, to begin with, to only a small percentage of the population; but gradually it became a language sought after not just by these engaged in commerce and missionary work but also one that ultimately acquired the status of official language: the language of government, commerce, legislature, and not at least of importance of communicating among Nigerians from different ethnic back grounds and between them and the external world. As time went on, it became possible to observe the differences between acrolectal English, spoken and written by those who had learnt the language direct from native speakers of the language and  mesolectal and basiclectal English, spoken by those, much larger in number, who had learnt the language from fellow Nigerians who, themselves, might have had little or no contact with native speakers.

The spread of primary education in the country from the 1980s greatly boosted the raves of mesolectal and basiclectal English, but the better informed opinion is that Nigerian pidgin is in fact a language in its own right. This project therefore is not concern with pidgin English. Consequently, there is the need for every Nigerian to be in the four basic skills of learning, listening, reading, writing and speaking. English language continues to be used even more intensively as a medium of instruction for pupils in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

In conformity with these importance, it is therefore necessary to teach it well. However overtime has not been the case especially in the public secondary schools. Teachers of English are particularly disturbed by the poor performance in English language (Ndahi 2008). Why it  is also important to place premium on learning and teaching of English is because it is the medium of instruction to teach other subjects as explained in the National policy education.

The questions frequently asked by skeptics bother on why it should be important for Nigerians to have a good command of English language and why deterioration in performance should bother any one. After all, such people are quick to point out, English is not our language.

Though, many people have observed that there is a steep fail in standard of education in Nigeria, this was further corroborated by a World Bank study with a report that university education in Nigeria has degenerated in the past 15 to 16 years. According to the report, graduate skill have steadily deteriorated over the past decade and that the poor performance of Nigerian graduates is particularly evident in two areas; poor mastery of the English language and lack of requisite technical skill. It was ascertained in the report that the deficiencies in both vital aspects makes Nigerians unfit for the labour market and sometimes the larger society. Short comings were particularly observed in oral and written communication and applied technical skills.

The study also indicated that a serious disconnection exist between university training and the needs of the labour market and this has been socially costly to the country. The report showed that in many cases, employers of labour compensate for insufficient academic preparation by organizing remedial course for new employees at great expenses. This often increased the companies operating cost and reduced profitability.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL

CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ORAL ENGLISH IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)

 

Leave a Reply