THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: NIGERIA'S EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Effective communication is the major deciding factor for a successful educational process because
it is the only means through which knowledge is passed from one individual to the other. It
therefore will not be out of place to say that a thorough understanding of the language of
communication by both teacher and student can never be overemphasized.

In Nigeria, the English language inherited from the British has been our official language and
therefore the only medium of effective communication in our formal educational system. Our
education is therefore inevitably limited to the extent to which we can communicate effectively
using this language medium and hence tied to our ability in learning as early in life as we are
expected to start learning arithmetic, sciences, social studies and the rest.

It is thus never out of place to say that a society like ours that has a major part of its young
population growing up learning one language at home in their early years only to end up in a
school, when they are ripe for one, that tries to teach them a new language while using the same
strange language to tell them how arithmetic is done, what science is all about and what social life
should be is a burden that weighs heavily against meaningful learning and hence workable
progress in the society. It can only be said to be even worse if we consider the fact that many of
the teachers of the language hardly understand it well enough themselves to teach it effectively.

Our progress in science, technology and engineering has been generally too slow to compete
favourably in a rapidly advancing world and a major reason for this is our lack of 'true'
understanding of these subjects. This is linked to our near total collective inability to grasp the
basic concepts as early as possible during the foundation period due to the communication
shortfall. The concepts then appear boring and completely uninspiring to us. The result is that we
ultimately run short of the number of scientists and technologists with "true" understanding that is
needed for a practicable synergy in the scale that is congruous with the Nigerian society.

Fancy a situation where a child's first word he ever uttered was from the Jenjo language. He then
went on to develop his communication skills in this language becoming socially and spiritually
comfortable and stable in it. Then at school-going age, rather than teaching him some strange and
abstract ideas using yet a strange language he has hardly known in his life, a teacher stands to
teach him just the formal rules of the language he has been communicating with and introducing
more vocabularies, and another teaches him arithmetic and what science is all about using his
Jenjo mother tongue. The child is bound to assimilate effortlessly, the class never boring, and
inspiration and the joy of learning becomes boundless. Decision towards choosing the path to take
as a career turns out less up-hill, his knowledge and skills in such a career becomes nothing short
of being consummate and practicing his profession grows into an enthusiastic and fun-filled
activity he'd fall sick if he take a break from.

I was in a Junior Secondary School class and, being a public school with kids that a typically from
poor homes that haven't been blessed with the opportunity of expensive play classes and nursery
education, our understanding of English language was relatively limited. Our Introductory
Technology teacher, being fully aware of this fact, decided to switch to the Hausa language we all
are most comfortable with and on that day he was to teach us the principle used in manipulating
the aeroplane so it can fly despite its weight. My teacher took us through that lesson so
encyclopedically giving me the opportunity of a profound and immeasurably exciting
understanding of how a plane flies. I was so captivated that day, I left school totally confident that
I shall be building a plane immediately. I got home, explained the same concept to a friend, he was
so inspired too that he joined me in the "project". All I can remember at this moment is that I
succeeded in destroying a pot from my mother's kitchen and forming some shapes from the
aluminium scraps produced. This is how inspiring, captivating and exciting learning can be if we
understand what is being taught as we should and such understanding only comes if
communication is effective.

Sadly, what we have today is a large population of school going kids and teenagers learning
sciences, mathematics and the likes with a seldom good understanding of the medium of
communication. Students are trying to understand what a certain combination of words meant or
even the very meaning of the individual words yet they are still being taught difficult ideas using
the same sets of words. The result is total or partial misconception of the points, boring and
uninspiring lessons, lack of motivation, lost of passion and at best a crop of students that put effort
only to memorize definitions and points to give back to the teacher in order to pass to the next
class without necessarily understanding what was taught. Misunderstood principles accumulates
so much so that by the time one has successfully learnt the language, the basics have already been
missed which are necessary and most needful for understanding at higher levels of education. The
culture of memorizing then continues in cycles that never ends. The passion and the understanding
needed to apply these things for greater achievements is then totally lost.

Advice would have been towards advocating for Nigeria as a country to start adopting it's local
languages for educational purposes. But such would be too radical and extremely costly a change.
It is comparatively easier to achieve our educational goals by simply grounding our understanding
of the English language as early as possible. Endless new words would have to be introduced,so
much translations of texts and we will indeed end up trying to learn a new language, our own
language again! Our best options therefore is to work on our English language learning process.

Government must enlighten parents through public and private school educators on the importance
of teaching the child English language to the child's development in both the short and long term.
Parents on the other hand must take communication with their kids in English language right from
infancy seriously. Recruitment of teachers of English language into public schools must be taken
seriously on merit and a good reward and incentive system must be established to promote
excellence in the teaching of this subjects especially in Nursery, Primary and Junior Secondary
schools. That way we can make significant gains and facilitate teaching and learning generally.