EFFECTS OF MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
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EFFECTS OF MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE
ABSTRACT
The study’s focus is on how mother tongue influences students’ ability to learn English in secondary schools in Enugu State’s Enugu North Local Government Area.
The purpose of the study is to determine how mother tongue influences English language acquisition in secondary school, particularly in four chosen schools in Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State.
500 people made up the study’s target group, and questionnaires were used for data gathering. The four schools in Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State that were chosen received the questionnaires.
Percentage analysis was used to examine the data. The research team’s conclusions are as follows. Because when numerous schools in Enugu North were visited, English language teachers did not have any instructional materials.
students’ limited proficiency with the English language. relatively few pupils buy books in the English language since the majority of English language instructors are not qualified.
that most kids have very poor comprehension of some of the vocabulary in the English language. Given the foregoing, the researcher suggests that the fourth edition of the national policy on education’s restrictions on the use of mother tongue be followed and that teachers be required to utilise the proper teaching methodology when instructing in English.
That student needs to be instructed in speaking English at all times. English language instructors should be required to make sure that at least each student follows along with the lesson in class. that hiring qualified teachers is a good idea.
CHAPITER 1
Background Of the study.
Every human being is born with the ability to utilise language; it is a special gift that is employed involuntarily as one tool of expression made up of various subskills.
The official language of Britain, Ireland, North America, Australia, America, and the majority of the British colonies is English. For the colonies, it is considered the official language rather than the local language.
It is frequently separated into three historical periods: Anglo-Saxon, or old English (c. 450–1100 B.C.), Middle English (c. 1100–15 B.C.), and modern English (c. 1500–present).
Native language is one’s mother tongue. A language is undoubtedly the most resilient part of each people’s cultural legacy, in addition to being the main factor that separates humans from other animals. It is inextricably linked to a people’s culture and reflects it.
Language is a vital instrument that improves human contact and communication. It is a crucial tool for social group cultural transmission and maintenance.
Fundamentally speaking, it is a vital tool in the maintenance and expansion of the human species. An analysis of a speech community’s linguistic makeup can reveal details about a certain people’s way of life, occupation, etc.
Our second language is English because it is the official national tongue of the British colonies, which includes Nigeria. Consequently, our individual mother tongues predate colonisation.
This has made it necessary for English to be taught and learned, interfering with our native languages in various study locations across the country.
As a result, it is obvious to say that Nigeria is a linguistically complex nation just by virtue of the fact that it has a long history. According to INTER NET, Nigerians speak between 250 and 400 different languages.
The continuous use of English in Nigeria is encouraged by this linguistic diversity. English is included in Ethnologic’s list of Nigerian languages, however this is barely warranted given the language’s varied and pervasive use in Nigeria, particularly as a method of intra- and inter-national communication.
The attempt to ascertain the impact of mother tongue use on the teaching and learning process in secondary schools is a result of the detrimental effects that the mother tongue had caused the study of the English language on the educational institutions.
Statement Of The Problem
Before the arrival of British traders, missionaries, and colonisers, the indigenous language of Nigeria defined every aspect of the speech community, including its religious, cultural, political, economic, social, and anything else that could be communicated through the language and dealt with all aspects of the daily lives of the people.
In an effort to alter the population’s language, the British immigration and the introduction of the English language created a situation where languages were in contact.
Where native local languages had previously been self-sufficient, new sets of ideas, concepts, and values were introduced to the system,
making them unprepared to deal with the new notions introduced by the British, particularly in the areas of formal education, Western law, etc.
As a result, English began to infiltrate areas that were previously the sole realm of indigenous languages, first subtly and eventually overtly.
The English language, which was brought to Nigeria through colonialism and missionary activity, is now widely spoken, thought of, and taught there.
Wherever English sentences are spoken, intonation, a term used to describe pitch variation, is typically present. For English language speakers who speak tonal as their first language, this is frequently a tough issue.
One of the main issues that English language learners face is this. Sentence and word stresses, vowel sounds, and English suprasegmental of pitch are some other problematic areas.
The goal of the study was to determine how mother tongue affected students’ ability to learn English in senior secondary schools in Enugu North Local Government Area, Enugu State.
Significance Of The Study
This study will assist in illuminating the various variables that affect how native or mother tongues affect the study of English.
The interference’s effects on other research areas that rely on English as their primary language of communication will also be noted.
Teachers will be able to pinpoint their English language issues according to this study. Additionally, this coursework will help students learn how to employ English words, particularly in terms of phonetics, intonation, and pronunciation. Additionally, it will give teachers the opportunity to conduct additional study on English language usage.
Given that English has been used as a second official language and occasionally as a foreign language in Nigeria for a long time and that language in contact has an inescapable behaviour,
it is normal to expect it to have characteristics that can distinguish it as a genuine subject, dialect, variety, or idiom of global English.
These could be considered research findings on interference, derintation, and originality as they are observed to exist among speakers. throughout Nigeria.
The term “English” is now used to refer to the dialect of English that Nigerians speak or write. It is well-known that the characteristics of Nigerian English, like those of other new English, are essentially inherent, especially in the early stages of learning.
Purpose Of The Study
The study’s primary goal is to;
1. Determine how much mother tongue interference there is with secondary school English language instruction.
2. To look into the credentials of English teachers in Enugu North secondary schools.
3. To understand how teachers in Enugu North’s secondary schools teach English using proper approaches.
Research Questions
1. Does mother tongue genuinely affect a student’s ability to learn English in a secondary setting?
2. How qualified are the English language instructors in schools?
3. Do English language teachers use the right teaching techniques when they instruct?
Research Hypothesis
H0 The mother tongue affects the acquisition of the English language.
H1 The learning of the English language is not hampered by the mother tongue.
HO2. The English language is taught and learned by English language teachers using the appropriate teaching methodology.
HO2. The English language instructors do not employ the proper methods of instruction.
Scope Of The Study
This study examines the impact of mother tongue interference on secondary school pupils’ learning of the English language in the Enugu North Local Government Area.
It is based on the results of regular evaluations and summative tests conducted by organisations like the West Africa Examination Council, the National Examination Council, and the Examination Development Centre for senior high school diploma exams in English.
Definitions Of Terms:
The terms used to create the heading of the research topic must be appropriately defined. This will significantly help in giving the research work direction.
These consist of:
MOTHER TONGUE: The first language a person learns to speak after hearing their original tongue.
In this application, interference refers to the interruption of one language by another, particularly in intonation and pronunciation.
Anglo-Saxon: A person with English ancestry. (2) A member of the English population at the time of the Norman conquest.
FUNDAMENTAL: Serious and extremely significant, impacting the core and crucial elements of something. (2) The basis for reality.
HETEROGENEITY: The presence of a variety of individuals or objects. (2) Similarity/Uniformity.
ETHNOLOGICAL: The moral principles and behaviours unique to a given community or society (2) Unique to a race or country.
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