THE USE OF MOTHER-TONGUE, EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background to the Study

            Mother tongue can be defined as the language which a group of people considered to? Inhabitant of an area acquired in the early years and which eventually becomes their natural instrument of though and communication.

            Mother tongue is the first language that a person learned. It is therefore generally accepted in teaching and learning processes, the mother tongue of the child of utmost important. For one things it categorize a large part of the child’s environment, that, it has names for most of the object action, idea, attribute and so on that are so important to him, as well as to any society. In many developing countries todays, this is either local language or the language of the previous colorizing power. The mother tongue is child’s environment and is the natural basis on which verbal skill can be build children learn through communication in a language which they understood.

            It was in recognition of the important and contribution of mother tongue to education that made the federal ministry of education` in collaboration with either educational statutory agencies include in the National Policy on Education published in 1977, revised in 1981, the use of mother tongue as a medium of educating pupils at primary level through out the country.

            According to the national Policy on Education (FRN, 2004) “Government will ensure that medium of instruction will be principally the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community” in terms of that view the person is a native speaker of the language, although one may also be a native speaker of more than one language if all of language we learned without formal education such as through cultural immersion before puberty of ten a child learns the basic of the first language(s) from family.

            The mother tongue medium education at the primary school level is provided less than twenty Nigerian language throughout the country. English is the exclusive medium of instruction at the primary level of education. The addition to appreciating the important of language in educational process and as a mean of preserving people’s culture, the government considers it in the best interest of national unity that each child should be encourage to learn one of the three major language which is the mother tongue.

1.2    Statement of the Problem

            Specifically, the study seeks to examine the effective of the mother tongue in the teaching and learning in primary schools and thus to get an insight into how the mother tongue should be established in schools and the use of mother tongue should be encouraged in the teaching-learning process and this is a process because of use of mother tongue pupil will not understand the topic and learning and teaching will not be effective. The understanding of these effectiveness would help to pin point what exactly are the things responsible for the deficiencies in the mother tongue language and this will turn yield.

1.3    Purpose of Study

            The general purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between the use of mother tongue and effective teaching and learning in Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area of Lagos State. Specifically it is:

(1)          To facilitate the development of reading ability and literacy skill in mother tongue in schools.

(2)          To improve communication and interaction the classroom and the integration of African culture and indigenous knowledge system into formal school curriculum.

(3)          To develop effective reading, writing and literacy in the mother tongue pupils can develop adequate literacy skill that they can use in learning official language.

(4)          To develop effective teaching that can lead to more successful learning opportunities in classroom where language familiar to both children and teacher are used as L1 at least in the first three years of education.

(5)          The revitalized the use of mother tongue within a bi-multilingual educational framework, studies related to bi-multilingual education in Africa indicated that use of mother tongue is basis education produces positive outcome if carefully implemented.

1.4    Significance of the Study

            This study is significant to know the effect monitor and assess the pupils learning. These are the benefit of mother tongue to the teaching and learning process are as follows:

(1)          Parent: parent should teach their child mother tongue that is the indigenous language because it will help the child very well because some children listen to their immediate environment language (L2) that is their mother tongue.

(2)          Government: Government should contribute effectiveness to the use of mother tongue basically in first education. In the National Policy of Education (1981) says that the use of mother tongue as a medium of educating pupils at primary level throughout the country.

(3)          Teachers: The reform of the teacher training programme to account for the new education language policies. Teaching in mother tongue is still viewed by many Africans as a first class occupation compared to teaching in international foreign language. Teacher should teach the pupils in the mother tongue when the pupil underrated so that effective teaching and learning will take place.

(4)          Children: pupils will benefit a lot from the use of mother tongue because the pupil will understand the teaching very well so that effective learning would be achieved.

1.5    Research Questions

            The study attempts to provide answers to the following questions:

(1)          Does mother tongue has any effect on the effectiveness of teaching and learning process?

(2)          Can we attribute the fallen standard of education in the country to the use of English language rather than our mother tongue?

(3)          If mother tongue is used as a medium of dissemination of knowledge in our school system, can our education system gain international standard?

(4)          Should the use of mother tongue be restricted to a particular level of education in Nigeria?

(5)          What would have been Nigeria’s major language of dissemination of knowledge if she was not colonized by the Western world?

1.5    Scope of Study

            This research work is mainly to cove Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area of Lagos State to find out why the use of mother tongue is not mainly be used in teaching and learning in primary schools.

1.6    Definition of Terms

Mother Tongue: It is a language of our parent in which we were conceived and born and it is the first language that a person learned.

Primary Education: This is a education that consist of six years of schooling starting at the age of five or six years.