AN EVALUATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE VARIETY THE SYLLABUS AND THE CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION REALITIES IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Submitted by:
Moses Olusanya Ayoola
Abstract:
The teaching of English Language in Nigeria has always been modeled after British English (BE) being a former British colony which is the supposed ideal despite the reality of other varieties such as Nigerian English and American English and the examination bodies in Nigeria remain very strict on the British English. This study investigates the variety of English being taught in Nigerian secondary schools using Ekiti state as a sample. The main objective of this study is to examine the variety of English recommended by the syllabus for teaching in Secondary schools vis a vis the variety being taught and used by the teachers; examine the realism of the target variety in the face of contextual factors. The total number of 100 secondary schools distributed across the 16 local governments of Ekiti State was selected for this study. As such 100 teachers of English were selected randomly as source of data while 500 students (10 from each school) were tested to determine the variety of English used by the learners. Both structured interview and questionnaire together with a designed variety checklist were used to elicit information from the respondents. The result revealed the confusion of both the teachers and the learners as the standard stipulated by the syllabus seems to be unrealistic because the teachers don’t have the proficiency in such variety to serve as role models. The study concludes that the Nigerian English variety should be standardized, recognized as reality and recommended for classroom instruction.
Key words: instruction, Nigerian English, realities, syllabus, Varieties