Language-in-Education Policy in Nigeria: The Reality of Teachers’ Language Choices
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Date
2016-06
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Journal of Capital Development in Behavioural Sciences
Abstract
The study investigated teachers’ choice of the medium of instruction in public primary schools in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The study specifically identified the languages used in mathematics classrooms in the selected schools, examined the reasons for teachers choices of language, and determined the effects of these choices on the teaching-learning process. The data for the study were obtained from five mathematics teachers and fifty pupils from five purposively selected primary schools through ethnographic observation and structured interviews. Data collected were analysed using Myers Scotton’s Matrix Language Framework model, as well as descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that teachers in the schools used both English and the pupils’ regional languages (such as Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa), where the regional languages were the matrix language and English was the embedded language, as the media of instruction in their classrooms. The teachers surveyed claimed that their choice of the pupils’ regional languages was necessitated by the fact that it allowed each pupil to learn
effectively in his/her languages in a natural, meaningful way as the various classroom activities were being implemented. The study concluded that the use of pupils’ home languages in multilingual classrooms does not result in a deficiency in learning, but is a useful strategy in classroom interaction and an efficient way of transferring knowledge to primary school pupils.
Keywords: Language Choice, Code Switching, Medium of Instruction, National Policy on Education
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Keywords
Language Choice, Code Switching, Medium of Instruction, National Policy on Education
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APA