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Time To Teach Our Primary Pupils In Their Mother Tongue

A few days ago, we were treated to a good TV drama between the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomole and a teacher, Mrs. Augusta Odenwingie who could not read properly. Mrs Odenwingie was asked to read an affidavit she swore to while declaring her age but to the amusement of all, she had difficulties until the governor helped in reading it for her. At a point, she was asked to repeat a sentence she didn't read well but answered in pidgin, ''Make I start am again," resulting to an outburst of laughter.

After helping her to read through the affidavit, Governor Oshiomole asked her: ''If you cannot read this, I wonder if you will be able to write it on the board. You have been teaching for 20yrs! I wonder where the children that passed through you are today".

Well, I'm sure we can all hazard a guess. Some of the students are big shots in different fields of endeavor, some are themselves teaching other kids, while others have fallen off the grid along the way. How good are these products? Your guess is as good as mine. Is it Mrs Odemwingie’s fault? No, sir, it’s more like a major policy failure than anything else.

For a very long time now, I have always questioned the rational behind our insistence on teaching with English language in our Primary Schools, the foundation of our educational structure, despite many scholarly studies that recommend the use of a child's mother tongue in passing knowledge to him at that stage. It is this stubborn insistence that has led us to producing half-baked graduates.

The call for using the mother tongue in instructing primary school pupils in Nigeria has been around for quite a while. It first came to my attention when the former Education Minister, late Professor Babatunde Fafunwa called for the use of Mother Tongue teaching in schools especially at the primary level and a research was carried out in Ile-Ife then and it was discovered that pupils taught using the mother tongue did better than their counter parts taught using English Language as a medium of communication. However it didn’t go a long way. Another professional teacher, Mr. Rotimi Adebambo, the Dean School of Languages, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education in Lagos is also an advocate. He had observed that, at the primary level of Education, the use of mother tongue in teaching all subjects should be encouraged, because in his opinion, at the formative stage, pupils will speedily grasp whatever is initiated via the use of mother tongue, since it is the language of their immediate environment and pupils will be at ease with it and effortlessly comprehend the concept and message being passed. I doubt if anyone can counter that common sense.

It is also worth noting that Economic giants like Germany, France, Russia, China, Japan and a host of other countries in Asia and around the world have always stuck this model of teaching in the mother tongue. In fact, the Danish are going one better. They already have bilingual foreign primary schools where children will now be offered teaching in their parent’s mother-tongue in a new trial programme announced by the Ministry of Education in Denmark. The programme will apply to around 3,900 students in years one and four – six-year-olds and nine-year-olds – in the 200 schools where more than 10 percent of children speak another language at home.

According to the Ministry, the programme is designed to test whether mother-tongue teaching raises the skill levels of students, particularly those with Arabic and Turkish background. Coming closer home, the Mozambicans have just "seen the light". Portuguese is the official language there and children in that country start school without knowing Portuguese, yet they have to learn everything in Portuguese. This, according to Professor Armindo Ngunga at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in Maputo, Mozambique, makes the learning process very difficult because everything we learn, we learn through language. Results from pilot projects on mother tongue education in Mozambique show that children who are taught in their mother tongue do better in school than those who are taught in Portuguese. The Botswanans are set to follow them soon with increasing calls in that Country for the use of local languages in their primary schools.

It should be recalled that the United Nations Education and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) had long advocated for the use of the students’ first language in education in its 1953 declaration, where it stated “It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue". Psychologically, it is the system of meaningful signs that in his mind works automatically for expression and understanding.

So what are we waiting for? More of these incidences of the public humiliation of a teacher or the continuous deterioration of the quality of education our kids are given? The curiously funny but disturbing thing is the growing trend where parents now believe that the ability of their kids to speak English is an indication of some sophistication and innate genius ability, despite the poor quality of English they "teach" these kids. This is happening while the local languages are suffering with fewer speakers. Is this really the way we want to go? Or will common sense prevail and our children given a good shot and the best possible chance to really develop the abilities and go on to conquer the world? Only time will tell.

Faisal Mu'azu works with the Ministry of Transportation and he is a Research Consultant with Skytrend News. He writes in from Lagos.


http://www.skytrendnews.com/index.php/religion/thursday-column/106-time-to-teach-our-primary-pupils-in-their-mother-tongue

we need to first work as a nation to protect the languages of smaller tribes from going into extinction and not just focus on major languages.

you are on point too

Cudnt hv said it any better. Don't be suprised to knw that there are kids from the three major tribes who think those are the only three languages in Nigeria, evn so many non Nigerians think like that.
Nice if we start teaching the pupils in their mother tongue but u and I know that will only be in the villages where only those group of pple live without anyone who is not from that tribe attending their school ..!
Presently am a corper servin in a village in nasarawa state,it was a suprise to so many corpers when they found out those pple were not Hausas but Gbagyis and Gedes!
It was difficult when I volunteered to do my MDGs training programme in d pry schl becos I undastnd only litl of Hausa and not their tribal lang.They undastnd little of English and dnt undastnd Hausa at all so I always taught with interpreters. It led to division in the community schl,the Gbagyis were taught seperately from the Gedes but that did us no good cuz the common entrance examinations were written in English and the teachers had to be in d hall to translate! So tell me OP how long will this continue?considering we have over 200 languages! in Nigeria,how many of these languages do we teach in,definitely we will pick the three major languges thereby sending d rest to extinction which is unfair to them.
*I'm a graduate of Primary Education Studies,
(NCE and B.ED)and this is an issue(reasons and effects of teaching in our mother tongue)I neva got satisfactory answers for from my lecturers but am carrying out a research on that *
As for the case of the teacher in Edo state,I have seen worse and to think these fellows are not just NCE but B.ED graduates,a lot of work really needs to be done in d educational sector of this country especially in the training of the teachers and our Colleges of Education(youths see it as a curse to be offered an admission in Cs O E) becos teaching has been turned to the last option for anyone who doesn't want to be idle or for old and poor people!there is no passion for it.

Can't forget d mockery I received from family and friends when I said I wanted to be a teacher considering my family and Educationl background but I thank God the story is changing.....
OP I stil stand to be corrected if I hv missed it somwhr.

PAGAN 9JA:
we need to first work as a
nation to protect the languages of smaller tribes from going into extinction and not just focus on major languages.

What do you think is the way forward?

peppy luv: Cudnt hv said it any better. Don't be suprised to knw that there are kids from the three major tribes who think those are the only three languages in Nigeria, evn so many non Nigerians think like that.
Nice if we start teaching the pupils in their mother tongue but u and I know that will only be in the villages where only those group of pple live without anyone who is not from that tribe attending their school ..!
Presently am a corper servin in a village in nasarawa state,it was a suprise to so many corpers when they found out those pple were not Hausas but Gbagyis and Gedes!
It was difficult when I volunteered to do my MDGs training programme in d pry schl becos I undastnd only litl of Hausa and not their tribal lang.They undastnd little of English and dnt undastnd Hausa at all so I always taught with interpreters. It led to division in the community schl,the Gbagyis were taught seperately from the Gedes but that did us no good cuz the common entrance examinations were written in English and the teachers had to be in d hall to translate! So tell me OP how long will this continue?considering we have over 200 languages! in Nigeria,how many of these languages do we teach in,definitely we will pick the three major languges thereby sending d rest to extinction which is unfair to them.
*I'm a graduate of Primary Education Studies,
(NCE and B.ED)and this is an issue(reasons and effects of teaching in our mother tongue)I neva got satisfactory answers for from my lecturers but am carrying out a research on that *
As for the case of the teacher in Edo state,I have seen worse and to think these fellows are not just NCE but B.ED graduates,a lot of work really needs to be done in d educational sector of this country especially in the training of the teachers and our Colleges of Education(youths see it as a curse to be offered an admission in Cs O E) becos teaching has been turned to the last option for anyone who doesn't want to be idle or for old and poor people!there is no passion for it.

Can't forget d mockery I received from family and friends when I said I wanted to be a teacher considering my family and Educationl background but I thank God the story is changing.....
OP I stil stand to be corrected if I hv missed it somwhr.

Great Write Up.

great indeed

Thanx. Why is this not on front page? Mods its time to change our mentality and discuss on more important issues pls.

PAGAN 9JA:


Great Write Up.

the admin probably didnt take notice

.

I think the moderator is busy with Beverly Osu and BBA. Naija! Chai!

lol