EFFECTS OF MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN THE STUDY OF CHEMISTRY IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

1.1 Introduction

The mother tongue is a mediating tool between students and teachers in language. Teachers are expected to play a leadership role in the classrooms. While monitoring the students who have problems with understanding the language, they can determine in what situations they need to resort to the use of the mother tongue. Mother tongue can be used as a facilitator to make a task meaningful. Thus the students can focus on the task without difficulty. The role of mother tongue in second language acquisition swings in two ways with one school of thought claiming that proficiency in mother tongue is useful in second language learning and another calling it interference influence. Chemistry is the study that deals with the composition, properties and the use of matter. It probes into the principles governing the changes that matter undergoes: (Advanced Level Chemistry by John Murray). Chemistry is an incredibly fascinating field of study, because it is so fundamental to our world. Chemistry plays a role in everyone’s lives and touches almost every aspect of our existence in some way.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Chemistry is essential for meeting our basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, health, energy, clean air, water and soil. Chemical technologies enrich the quality of life in numerous ways by providing new solutions to problems in health and materials and energy usage. Chemistry as one of the major sciences is concerned with the composition, structure and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergo during chemical reactions. Chemistry is the science of matter and the changes it undergoes under different conditions of temperature and pressure.

Experience shows that chemistry learning poses substantial challenges at all levels of instruction (from secondary school to university) and for all the aspects – understanding concepts, experimental procedures and problem solving procedures, and being able to relate experimental procedures and observations, or problem solving procedures, to concepts. Learning challenges largely derive from the nature of chemistry as the science of substances, where the understanding of properties and events of the microscopic world of atoms and molecules is the key to understanding the macroscopic behaviours of substances (broader reflections on the relationships between the nature of chemistry and the learning challenges will be incorporated in a separate, philosophy-based work). Students’ difficulties with regard to understanding the particulate nature of matter, or relating it to macroscopic descriptions and phenomena, have been the objects of numerous studies in the last decades; a meaningful review would go beyond the size and the scope of the current work; some pioneering works like those by Ben-Zvi, Eylon & Silberstein (2016), might be recalled as examples of investigation questions and approaches.

The major challenge for educators is the design of options that can help facilitate students’ understanding of chemistry. This work focuses on the utilization of language analysis as a tool to provide clarifications and to engage students actively. A number of studies (Wellington & Osborne, 2001; Brooks, 2006; Fang, 2006; Mammino, 2010, 2012, 2013; Marshall et al., 2011) indicate the crucial role of language mastery in determining learning success. Teaching and learning depend on teacher- learner communication (including the communication realised through a textbook or other learning resources) and on the learners’ ability to develop thoughts.

Mother tongue is one’s native language. A language besides being the major distinguishing phenomenon between man and other creatures is evidently the most enduring of every people’s cultural heritage. It reflects the culture of a people and it is in extricable bound up with it. Language is an important tool that enhances human communication and interaction. It is a vital instrument in cultural transmission and preservation of a social group. It is in a fundamental sense, a crucial tool in the preservation and propagation of the human species. An examination of the linguistic content of a particular speech community can provide information about the life style, occupation etc. of a given people.

The communication effectiveness of language in education depends on the degree of rigour and clarity (Mammino, 2000) with which sentences are built and assembled to form a text (where the term text includes both written and verbally-expressed sentences or sets of sentences) and on the learners’ ability to identify all the information conveyed by the text, which, in turn, depends on the learners’ language mastery. Therefore, language mastery is a major key for the teaching and learning process and for conceptual understanding.

Therefore, in Enugu State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Effects of Mother Tongue Interference in the Study of Chemistry in Secondary Schools.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that most of the chemistry teachers during teaching always speak mother language to communicate with the students as a result of this most of the students finds it very difficult to pronounce and write some of the chemistry terms with English language. In recognition of the importance of English language for enhancing educational attainment as well as for improving communication ability of citizens, the government had made the subject a core subject (FGN, 2004). It was on the note that the researcher intended to go into this research to find out the effect of mother tongue in teaching and learning of Chemistry in Senior secondary schools in Enugu North Local Government Area.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Effects of Mother Tongue Interference in the Study of Chemistry in Secondary Schools using Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To find out the relationship between the mother tongue and the study of chemistry.
2. To investigate the effects of mother tongue interference in the study of chemistry.
3. To know the solutions to challenges of studying chemistry after learning the mother tongue.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Are the Chemistry teachers in schools qualified?
• Does chemistry teacher adopt correct teaching methods in teaching?
• Does mother tongue actually interferes in the learning of chemistry in secondary school?
• What are the effects of mother tongue interference in the study of chemistry?
• What are the relationship between the mother tongue and the study of chemistry?
• What are the solutions to challenges of studying chemistry after learning the mother tongue?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: Mother tongue interference does not have a negative effect in the study of chemistry.
• H1: Mother tongue interference has a negative effect in the study of chemistry.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is a negative relationship between mother tongue interference and the study of chemistry.
• H1: There is a positive relationship between mother tongue interference and the study of chemistry.

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1.7 Significance of Study

This study will help to expose the numerous factors that influence the interference of the study of chemistry by the mother tongue or native languages. It will also identify the effects of this interference on other study area that are based on the use of the English language as the basic communication.

This study will enable teachers to identify their problems in chemistry. This study will also enable student to understand how to apply chemical concept.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Effects of Mother Tongue Interference in the Study of Chemistry in Secondary Schools using Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State as a case study.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

It is imperative to properly define the terms that make the heading of the research topic under study. This will go along way at giving direction to the research work. This includes:

Mother Tongue: The native language one first learns to speak before other language.

Interference: In this context, interruption of a language by another especially in pronunciation and intonations.

Second Language: Foreign language, any language other than the native language or mother tongue. A second language usually learnt and not acquired through interaction with other.