MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE'S EFFECTS ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING 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.

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

Language is a creation which every human being is endowed with or blessed; a unique gift of language is used naturally as one tool of expression consisting of different sub skills. The English language is the official and native language of Britain, Ireland, North America, Australia, America and most of the British colonies, (for the colonies, it is regarded as the official language rather than native). It is commonly divided by periods into Anglo-Saxon, or old English (about 450-1100 Bc), Middle English (about 1100 to 15Bc) and modern English (from 1500 to date).

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 English language beings the national official language for the British colonies of which Nigeria is among makes it our second language. Hence, our respective mother tongue exists before colonization. This has necessitated the teaching and learning of the English language and its consequent interference in our mother tongue in various study points nation wide. It is therefore, glaring to state that, Nigeria is a linguistically complex society by the mere fact of the history of its creation. It is estimated that there are between 250 and 400 language spoken in Nigeria (INTER NET).

This linguistic heterogeneity promotes the continued use of English in Nigeria. Ethnologic include English amongst its list of Nigeria language this hardly supervising since the role of English language in Nigeria diverse and ubiquitous, especially as a means of intra and international communication. It is as a result of the negative effects which the mother tongue had caused the study of English language on the educational structures of the attempt to determine the effect of the use of mother tongue on the teaching and learning process in secondary schools.

Therefore, in Imo State where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Mother Tongue Interference’s Effects on English Language Teaching in Secondary Schools.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that before the advent of British traders, missionaries and colonialists, indigenous Nigerian language defined every aspect of the speech community from its religious, cultural, political, economics, social to whatever else that can be through of the language functioned effectively to deal with everything relating to the day existence of the people. The arrival of the British, concomitant with the English language provided a language contact situation with an attempt to a language shift in the population.

New sets of ideas, concepts and values were introduced to the system where indigenous local language had previously been self-sufficient, rendering them inadequate to deal with the new concepts introduced by the British, particularly in the areas of formal education, Western law etc. The result was the initial subtle and later blatant intrusion & influence of English language on domains that were the exclusive preserve of indigenous language.

Now, the English language is generally an accepted language which was introduced into Nigeria through colonialism and missionary activities is now spoken, thought and learned in Nigeria.

Where English language sentence are made, they are characteristically uttered with variation in pitch often referred to as intonation. This is often an area of difficulty for second language, users of English language who have tonal? Language as their first language. This is one of the major problems encountered by learners of English language. Other areas of problem encountered are’, Sentence and word stresses, vowel sounds and English suprasegmental of pitch. The study intended to identify the effect of mother tongue in the study of English language in senior secondary schools in Imo West Local Government Area of Imo State.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to scrutinize the Mother Tongue Interference’s Effects on English Language Teaching in Secondary Schools. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To find out the level at which mother tongue can interfere in the learning of English language in secondary school.
2. To investigate the qualifications of English teachers in secondary school in Owerri municipal.
3. To know how teachers makes use of correct methods in teaching of English language in secondary school in Imo municipal.

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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 English language teachers in schools qualified?
• Does an English language teacher adopt correct teaching methods in teaching?
• Does mother tongue actually interferes in the learning of English language in secondary school?

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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 dose not interferes in the learning of English language.
• H1: Mother tongue interferes in the learning of English language.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: English language teacher do not make use of correct teaching method.
• H1: English language teachers make use of correct method of teaching in teaching and learning of English language.

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1.7 Significance of Study

This study will be of immense benefit to academic students and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Mother Tongue Interference’s Effects on English Language Teaching in Secondary Schools Owerri Municipal in Imo State.

It is based on the available result gotten from continuous assessment and summative examinations of schools such as West Africa Examination Council, the national examination council and examination development centre for senior school certificate examination all in English Language.

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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.

Anglo-Xason: A person whose ancestors were English. (2) An English person of the period before the Norman Conquest.

Fundamental: Serious and very important affecting the most central and important parts of something. (2) Foundation of reality.

Heterogeneity: Consisting of many different kinds of people or things (2) Uniformity/Alike.

Ethnological: The moral ideas and attitudes that belong to a particular group or society (2) peculiar to a race or nation.