THE ATTITUDE OF STUDENTS TOWARDS ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THEIR ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EXAMINATION (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
English Language was introduced to Nigeria in 1842, by the batch of missionaries who arrived Badagry to evangelize as well as educate the natives (Tomori, 1981). The British Government became the colonial masters of Nigeria from the cession of Lagos as a colony in 1861. The representatives of the queen that was sent back to look after her majesty colony officialised English language in the colony and informally introduced by the early missionaries. The teachers of English Language became prominent at the turn of the nineteenth century by the European missionaries and the freed African slaves who believed that the adoption at European cultures and values would save Africa from barbarism, ignorance, poverty and disease. English since then has occupied a central position in Nigeria and its importance has been growing by leaps and bounds. Though many people would agree that there is an observable fall in standard of education in Nigeria. Nobody in his wildest imagination would have believed that university education in Nigeria has fallen to an abysmally low level as a world bank study has shown in a report that university education in Nigeria has degenerated in the past fifteen to sixteen years.
The shocking news which was reported as are of the lead headlines in the guardian, one of Nigerians major daily newspapers, was published on 19th February, 2001. The screaming headline reads “World Bank Reports Scores Nigerian Graduates Low”. The guardians newspaper quoted the World Bank sponsored study that, Nigeria graduates are poorly trained and unproductive on the job. Graduates skills have steadily deteriorated over the past decade (PI). According to the report, the poor performance of Nigerian graduates is particularly evident in two areas, poor mastery of English Language and lack of requisite technical skills, it was ascertained in the report that the deficiencies in both vital areas make Nigeria graduates of the past fifteen years unfit for the labour market, and sometimes the larger society shortcomings were particularly observed in oral and writing communication, and applied technical skills.
