“Does Speaking of English As First Language in
Nigeria Homes Promotes Academic Excellence?” YES or NO?
This debate topic has generated alot of argument, I need expert opinion on this topic please

Tolupride:
“Does Speaking of English As First Language in
Nigeria Homes Promotes Academic Excellence?” YES or NO?
This debate topic has generated alot of argument, I need expert opinion on this topic please

Hmm. Unfortunately, yes and by unfortunately I meant our local languages do not have the vocabularies that science and other disciplines introduce daily except they were to be burrowed as neologisms.

Although, I don't believe that the ability to communicate impeccably in English is a yardstick to prove a high intelligence.

Another reason why I said it's unfortunate is because even though Nigerian languages do not have as much lexicons as English or most european languages, there would have been developments in a bid to match other nations. Take the chinese for example, they still teach their students in mandarin and chinese till they started adopting english of recent.




SEE HOW DEVELOPED THEY ARE NOW.

The op above stole my ftc and also commented unprofessionally,
English has Notting to do with intellectual ability,
Let's used China and Korea as a case study,
They speak more of their dialects than English.
Yet you can't talk of intelligence without mentioning the above country.

Nigerian home simply compare there children to speak foreigh language because of publicity stunt.

its an added advantage

Yes. English language is more standardised and evolved compared to our local languages

I dee come Abeg.

NO.

my parent spoke igbo to me throughout my childhood till now...but i learnt English from school and excelled

n have seen families that spoke English when we were kids that have a big tabalaraza brain.

and i believe we are losing our language already through the overly use of English...which is the citadel of our culture.

n

Being able to communicate effectively with english is good. It looks absurd to me when people start over hyping ability to communicate effectively in english language as the yard stick of measuring academic excellence. science and technology is the only way to advanced living--- it's not ability to speak Queen's english! scientific terms were not written in english language, they were written and derived from many european nations' languages. Nigeria------which puts much emphasis on ability to communicate effectively in English language to the detriment of science-----remains developing nation compare to China that teaches with her own languages!

Eh

Yes. Buhari is a perfect example

No.. Academic excellence has to do with individual's I. Q.

I have seen a Child from a remote Local area perform excellently when she was given a chance.

And there are many cases of children that are brought up in civilized English speaking Environment that still can't compete.

Basically, it depends on the individual.

No. It is better to learn/speak mother tongue first before English language. Go and read about Yoruba model school research conducted by University of Ife.

There is nothing like expert opinion...
All opinions are subjective....And will always differ
Only facts will do...
Go and Do a scientifically based research, not Nairaland research...
Otherwise, the answer you seek remains inconclusive...
And you will end up drawing your own opinion from a pool of other opinions

The man above me is right.... hear him.

Hmm, both are owk... I remember when I was in ss1 nd I had difficulty in understanding logarithm, our maths teacher just switched to yoruba nd just like that I grabbed the concept

In my opinion, I think it does. A child who is not academically sound in written and spoken English is likely to perform poorly in other subjects because the other subjects are mostly taught in English. This will affect the overall academic performance of the child.

There's no need saying we should learn Biology or Chemistry or Economics in our local languages due to the problems that can create. For instance, there are many biological terms and chemical terms that cannot be translated to our local languages. Trying to find the synonymous words, sentences or phrases of these terms in our local languages is a huge problem on its own.

The truth is that we learn in English and whoever that cannot express himself/herself clearly in same can hardly transfer knowledge!

ask urself this question:does it mean that people that speak spanish,french,chinese,hindi,arabic etc dont excel in their academy

Yes and No.. " No!" in the sense that it the English-language contains a lot words for varieties of expressions and things which gives it an edge more than the native Mother Tongue {MT}. For example, in the Yoruba language, colours are generally classified into 3 black {dudu}, yellow or red {pupa}, white {funfun}. These are just few out of the primary colours yet, the yorubas still use "pupa" for both "red" and "yellow" which is a very terrible mistake. What about colours like green, blue, purple, Indigo, violet, pink, etc.?. We lack adequate words for these natural phenomenon hence, the poor cognitive response in respect of learning via the MT.

"Yes" ! In regards to the early role the MT has to play in the life of a person through language acquisition and learning. According to the behaviorist/innatist school of thought championed by Noam Chomsky, a child's ability to learn a language is innate which means that he was born with the Language Acquisition Device {LAD} and it has being proven that learning through the MT is actually good for the fast mental development of a child. If Mathematics, English-language, chemistry, physics, and other subjects were actually thought using the MT, then there's a chance that the child would grasp and acquire knowledge faster and better than kids who learn through the use of English-language as a second language in a country like Nigeria because they believe that due to the child's Language competence and performance of the MT, the child would be able to transfer Linguistics items to the the second language which is English in this context.

Extensive research has being carried out on this matter by some scholars from the department of English-language Obafemi Awolowo University using pupils from the OAU international primary school as their case study. Yoruba language was used to teach some students while the English-language was used to teach the other students. I think this experiment lasted few years and they were able to affirmitely deduce from their conclusion that learning via the MT was in fact, more intellectually rewarding than English as a second language.






Post No Bill.

Yes it does....Especially on this part of the Africa

Choosing English as your first language is itself an academic excellence

In fact you cannot thrive here in this country without it

Sort of... yh

yes it does but...

AFRICANS ARE VERY STUPID, YOUR ABILITY TO SPEAK ANOTHER MAN'S LANGUAGE RATE YOUR INTELLIGENCE HOW STUPID ONE COULD BE??

Igbo is my first language and have done very well academically! Though born and raised in Lagos, my parents made Igbo the language of communication in our home but that did not limit our proficiency in English Language and Yoruba. Germans don't think in English but "Made in Germany" is always First Class!

martineinstein:
ask urself this question:does it mean that people that speak spanish,french,chinese,hindi,arabic etc dont excel in their academy

Have you ever bothered to know which language such people were taught?

mickeyenglish:
Yes and No.. Yes in the sense that it the English-language contains a lot words for varieties of expressions and things which gives it an edge more than the native Mother Tongue {MT}. For example, in the Yoruba language, colours are generally classified into 3 black {dudu}, yellow or red {pupa}, white {funfun}. These are just few out of the primary colours yet, the yorubas still use "pupa" for both "red" and "yellow"

Nah! You gave the wrong examples. There are more than 3 names for colors in Yoruba; the problem is that you all have refused to learn about the local languages. White (funfun), red (pupa), black (dudu), yellow (ofeefe), green (awo eweko), ash (awo eeru), blue (awon sanmon) and so on.
However, I concur that our local languages lack adequate lexicons. But that can even be attributed to the fact that we've refused to use them in our academic environment; thereby, failing to work on them constantly as often done in the case of English language.