Assessment of The Problems of Learning the Aural – Oral Skills at JSS Level in Katsina State, Nigeria (Published)
Effective communication in English by students at the Junior Secondary School level as envisaged by the 9 – Year English Studies Curriculum has remained elusive. In this article, effort is made to trace the problems with a view to offering workable solutions. The descriptive survey method was used. Sixty-eight Junior Secondary School students were used in the study. The subjects selected included 384 students. A self – designed questionnaire was used to collect the information required. Analysis of data was done by means of frequency counts and percentage. The study revealed among others, fear of English by students due to its absurdity. Based on the findings, among the recommendations given, was the need for teachers to employ more friendly activities to teach aural – oral skills to make their learning more effective and enjoyable.
Keywords: Assessment, Aural, JSS Level, Katsina State, Nigeria, oral skills, problems of learning
Assessment of the Problems of Learning the Aural: Oral Skills at JSS Level in Katsina State, Nigeria (Published)
Effective communication in English by students at the Junior Secondary School level as envisaged by the 9 – Year English Studies Curriculum has remained elusive. In this article, effort is made to trace the problems with a view to offering workable solutions. The descriptive survey method was used. Sixty-eight Junior Secondary School students were used in the study. The subjects selected included 384 students. A self – designed questionnaire was used to collect the information required. Analysis of data was done by means of frequency counts and percentage. The study revealed among others, fear of English by students due to its absurdity. Based on the findings, among the recommendations given, was the need for teachers to employ more friendly activities to teach aural – oral skills to make their learning more effective and enjoyable.
Citation:Gide Umar Saleh (2021) Assessment of the Problems of Learning the Aural: Oral Skills at JSS Level in Katsina State, Nigeria, International Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research, Vol.9, No 8, pp.17-29
Keywords: Assessment, JSS Level, Katsina State, Nigeria, aural – oral skills, problems of learning
Language and Governance in Nigeria: A Symbiotic Relationship (Published)
Language is one of those natural endowments bequeathed to man by nature to empower him and adequately position him to be the lord and master of his environment. Thus, it is unimaginable or even absurd to conceive of any human endeavour where language does not play a prominent role. But given the prevailing attitude in developing world, Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, it would appear much attention is not usually paid to language when the theme of discourse is governance. In fact, if the factors that enhance governance were to be highlighted, language may be the last or not even mentioned at all. In view of this erroneous attitude and impression, this paper sets out to establish that a symbiotic relationship exists between language and governance, that is to say that the two phenomena are unarguably intertwined that none can maximize its potentialities in the absence of the other. The paper further reviews the lapses noticed in the Nigerian language policies, which have retarded language development in Nigeria. The paper, therefore calls on the actors in the theatre of governance to come up with feasible language policy as well as language planning in order to create enabling environment for the development of the existing languages in Nigeria.
Keywords: Governance, Language, Nigeria, symbiotic relationship
Generic Structure Potential (GSP) and Discourse Features in Selected Banking Discourses in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria (Published)
This paper examines the Generic Structure Potential and Discourse Features in selected banking discourses in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria. The data, which comprised the recorded interactions between the customer service officer and the customers in the selected banks were transcribed, categorized and analysed based on the Generic Structure Potential model by Halliday and Hasan and the Metadiscourse Model by Hyland and Tse. The findings indicate that the Generic Structure Potential deployed five obligatory elements which are Greeting Initiation (GI), Customer Complaint (CC), Question and Response (QR), Proffering of solution (PoS) and Close (Cls) and four optional elements which are Request for Customer’s Complaint (RCC), Request for Account Details (RAD), Confirmation of Customer Details (CCD) and Apologies for Delay (AD). The Discourse Features include Opening, Closing, Questioning, Turn and Turn taking while the markers deployed by the CSO and customers include transitional markers, frame markers, hedges, attitude markers, self-mention, engagement markers and boosters. The paper concludes that GSP shows the structure of conversations, while Discourse Features help to aid better understanding between CSO and customers in banking discourse.
Keywords: Discourse Features, Generic Structure Potential (GSP), Ibadan, Nigeria, Oyo State, banking discourses
Linguistic Politeness Forms in English among Igbo Bilinguals in Nigeria: The Case of Reprimand (Published)
The study examined Igbo perception and expression of reprimand speech act in line with politeness as a conversation strategy in the conversational English of Igbo native speakers which is unexplored. Through a purposive sampling process, 3 000 questionnaires in the form of Discourse Completion Task depicting ten scenarios of imagined role-play between interlocutors written in English were distributed to undergraduates of Igbo extraction at seven universities systematically selected from South-East and South-South zones in Nigeria. Results showed that reprimands were conversational norms of Igbo bilinguals and were evident in their English language conversations as participants engaged in reprimanding occasioned by forms of misconduct. Findings also revealed that to achieve the conversational demands of reprimand speech act across horizontal, vertical and diagonal relationships as the case may be, the Igbo culture reflected observance of context, social status, social distance and severity of offence variables a consideration of which at the instance of a conversation underlies the choice/use of a particular strategy or another. The study concluded that speech act is culture-bound hence the need to incorporate pragmatics in language teaching
Keywords: : linguistic politeness, Culture, Igbo bilinguals, Nigeria, Social variables, reprimand
A Socio-Stylistic Analysis of Niyi Osundare’s “Blues for the New Senate King” (Published)
Style is an important aspect of literary analysis of text. The manipulation of words by a writer creates a distinct style through which he/she reaches out to the audience. A literary stylistic analysis of Niyi Osundare’s “Blues for the New Senate King” is carried out in order to demonstrate to the readers that a poet can deploy language to achieve satirical effect. To achieve this, lexico-syntactic patterns, graphological devices, phonological and morphological choices of the poet are stylistically analysed, using the approach that describes style as the linguistic choice of a writer. The paper found out that each of the linguistic choices has identifiable function that is performed in the poem. It is concluded that these linguistic elements contribute meaningfully to the overall message of the poem which satirizes the ignominious manner in which the Nigerian Senate President assumed the leadership of the upper chamber of legislature in Nigeria for the 8th Assembly.
Keywords: Linguistic, Literacy, Nigeria, Niyi Osundare, Poet, Style