A Complete Oral English teacher

The hallmark of an educated man or woman in the yester years was the distinctiveness of the diction and correctness of the way the English Language was spoken. The phonetic accuracy that overcame the usual interference of the mother tongue nasalization and consonantal substitution of /r/ with /l/ in such words as ‘rate’ for ‘late’ and ‘road’ for ‘load’ and vice versa among some of the Igbo speakers of English. /n/ with /l/ in such names as ‘Sonomon’ for ‘Solomon’ among some of the Urhobo speakers; /z/ with /dz/ in such names as ‘Zohn’ for ‘John’ among some of the Ijaw (Izon) speakers and /f/ with /p/ in such words as ‘fainter’ for ‘painter’. ‘Panta’ for ‘Fanta’ etc among some of the Hausa and Middle Belt speakers of English that marked the identification of the speaker with the stereotyped particular ethnic group was as a result of the great efforts made then, to read and speak what was called the ‘Queen’s English’ This was probably due to efforts and pedagogic skills of the teachers of English in our Schools and Colleges who were mostly British.

In the early years of decolonization, the few Nigerian teachers of English Language made very great efforts to uphold that tradition. Time has changed, especially as from the nineteen-eighties when explosion in student’s enrolment in schools and colleges shot up exponentially, and pedagogic thoroughness was lost. In University and other tertiary institution campuses, spoken English was replaced with indigenous languages and Pidgin English.

I had direct encounters with this problem of teaching English Language in our Secondary School system (now Middle and Upper Basic) First, as a Guidance Counsellor supervising the WAEC and NECO English Language Paper 3: Test of Orals Examinations, I observed some candidates who within the first fifteen minutes had simply shaded any root optional answer to the question stem without any deliberations on all the optional root answers. Some candidates just shaded the very few, they felt they knew, and left the rest blank. The consequence was of course, outright failure. When confronted, they had claimed that, they were not taught by their teachers of English Language.

The second encounter was when as Deputy Director of the Federal Inspectorate of Education, we were collating Full Inspection Report. The team of Inspectors for English Language lamented the shoddy manner in which English Language 3 was being taught. It reported that teachers complained of lack of a comprehensive textbook, audio teaching aid, and lack of Language laboratory to aid the teaching of English Language 3.

The third encounter was in 2009 as the Principal of the Federal Government College, Idoani, Ondo State. Albeit my school scored above 70% pass rate in FIVE subjects including English Language and Mathematics, probably because we enrolled less than 300 candidates, many of the Colleges that enrolled more candidates performed very woefully scoring below 12% pass rate. The Minister of education who was enraged, summoned the Principals to a diagnostic meeting in Abuja. The common strand that ran through most Colleges was the report that the teachers of English had difficulty in teaching English Language 3: Test of Orals because of the gap in pedagogy created by lack of appropriate textbook, and audio teaching materials to handle that aspect of the English Language.

It is therefore, pertinent to state that this app has bridged this gap. The team of researchers very aptly led by Mr. Nnamdi Akajiaku – a very experienced tutor of English Language in Federal Government Colleges, with cognate experiences of over three decades, and with banners of excellent results achieved by his students over these years; are adequate testimonials to the authoritative inscriptions and prescriptions made in this book.

The app is thus, most timely welcome to serve the instructional needs of teachers, and the self-study needs of students. It is therefore, a most valuable ‘must use’ and ‘resource material’. Not only for teachers and students of English Language, but equally very indispensable study material for the general reader, in the bid to restore those hallmarks of the educated English speaker of the past years.