Multimodality of Tact Enactment to Stay Safe during the COVID-19 Pandemic-ridden Period (Published)
This paper examines drama of reality orchestrated on the heels of the outbreak of a pandemic known as CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19). The disease which erupted in China around December 2019 started killing in hundreds and thousands without any tested drug in sight to quell its furnace except precautionary measures like ‘social distancing’ ‘Hand wash with sanitizer’, ‘wearing of face mask’ and the like. Cases were purposely selected through the affordances of newspapers, recorded newscast, social media applications like WhatsApp, and You-tube. Multimodality as well as Tact Maxim was considered an apt theoretical framework to capture selected instances in the Nigerian situation owing to the exploitation of semiotics and other linguistic nuances involved in the data collection. The critical analysis of the drama revealed that the world had never been the same, and that in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new world-order was imminent ; just like it had happened after the historic 1720 , 1820, and 1920 occurrences. The pandemic period was therefore a show of insincerity in governance, ingratitude, display of abject poverty necessitating renewed dedication to salient essentials of life. The religious circle was not spared as adherents became wiser when the hitherto mammoth crowd as a show of affluence and generosity became replaced with defined gathering, The paper concluded on a note that it is time non-realistic and non-productive policies were jettisoned in order to forestall future re-occurrences of the pandemic. These, in the Nigerian situation should take the form of reducing the recurrent expenditure of the legislature, avoiding mono-economy and re-diversifying, redefining the essential and non-essential services, intensifying e-learning/banking, etc, curbing the excesses of law-enforcement agents and civilians alike. These would go a long way to better the lot of the masses, provided sincerity, transparency and accountability become the watch-word of governance.
Keywords: Nigeria, Reality, coronavirus pandemic, insincerity, laxity, staying safe
An Evaluation of Emerging Trends in Written English among University Students in South-East Nigeria: The Teachers’ Perspective (Published)
The study investigated the degree to which students used emerging trends in their handwritten academic work. Through a three-stage random sampling, selected facilitators assessed students’ tasks in order to identify those “informal/emerging trends” used by students. Pretested questionnaire written in English was administered to facilitators at the Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria. Results showed that facilitators encountered emerging trends and at a high frequency while grading scripts. Findings revealed that the most likely causes of usage were poor learning in English, social media influence and keeping with the trend. Again, the study showed the consequences include grammar/spelling error, formation of incorrect/unacceptable structure, poor performance in examinations/use of English among others. Finally, the study demonstrated that facilitators were inclined to constant correction during teaching, giving more exercises involving essay writing as corrective measures to check the use and recommended that teachers must adopt a hands-on approach on the correctness of grammar.
Keywords: Emerging Trends, Nigeria, University students, formal/academic writing, teachers’ perspective
The Impact of the National Policy on Education (NPE) On Multilingual Proficiency in Nigeria (Published)
About 450 languages are spoken in Nigeria with Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba as the major languages. In order to assign functional roles to the multiplicity of languages, the Federal Government promulgated the National Policy on Education (henceforth NPE) in 1977 stipulated that every Nigerian child must be proficient in his mother tongue and in a major Nigerian language. At the secondary level, it is expected that every child should be bilingual in two Nigerian languages. Thirty six years later, the impact of the policy on the language education of Nigerian pupils was assessed. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview methods. Findings revealed that the primary aim of the NPE has not been achieved. Based on the findings, the recommendation made include the organization of intensive workshop sessions for language teachers to expose them to the modern techniques for attaining bilingualism through effective training.
Keywords: Education, Language, National Policy, Nigeria