[lg policy] bibitem: Language Policy, Mother tongue Education and the Role of the Nigerian Language Teacher in Nigerian Language Education

[Harold Schiffman]

 Journal of Education and Practice, Vol 3, No 10 (2012)

Language Policy, Mother ongue Education and the Role of the Nigerian
Language Teacher in Nigerian Language Education
B.M. Mbah

Abstract

The paper aims at providing the function of the mother tongue and/or
the language of the immediate community in a nation state like
Nigeria. The paper is important because Nigeria is a political state
with many nationalities. The position of the indigenous languages of
the federating nationalities is threatened by English, a colonial
language, hoisted on the Nigerian peoples from the advent of
colonialism. The paper therefore tries to x-ray the position of these
indigenous languages against that of English. It relates the position
of the indigenous languages one against the other and their collective
position against English. Furthermore, it analyses the possibility of
developing Nigeria and its economy in such a debilitating position and
highlights the difficulty of Nigeria making progress with a colonial
language. It further gives an insight into how different developed and
emerging economies in the world have harnessed their indigenous
languages to drive their economies. It adopts a descriptive cum survey
approach in its methodology. It discovers that all major economies in
the world use their indigenous languages as official languages. It
consequently feels that until the indigenous Nigerian languages are
accorded the official position they deserve and English demoted to the
status of foreign language just as French or Arabic, educating
Nigerians will continue to be difficult. If educating Nigerians is
made difficult, then developing Nigeria will continue to be a mirage:
the country will continue to lie prostrate with the English language
as a medium of instruction in Nigerian schools. Consequently, it
recommends that Federal Government of Nigeria should make concerted
efforts to implement the Nigerian Policy on Education by putting
visible structures in place to raise the policy from a mere paper work
to a utilitarian policy.

Key words: language policy, mother tongue, education, teacher

http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/view/2531

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