Abstract
The present study traces the poor performance of Nigerian students in English to the sole use of British English for teaching and evaluation purposes in the Nigerian ESL classroom thereby neglecting the local Nigerian variations which, as it should be expected, reflect the linguistic and cultural contexts that English must, as a necessary condition, accommodate if it must function effectively in Nigeria’s multilingual socio-cultural setting. The study, after presenting some syntactic and lexico-semantic variations in Nigerian English and highlighting their appropriateness within the Nigerian socio-cultural context, argues that, if students must perform well in English and even in other subjects taught and examined in English, it is necessary to teach them and evaluate their performances by using an endonormative model (that is, Standard Nigerian English), which is capable of reflecting the local variations that English has, in a bid to satisfy the demands for communicative appropriateness, manifested in the Nigerian setting. This is so because Standard Nigerian English as an endonormative model is, because of its ability to appropriately reflect the Nigerian experience, more supportive to the students in the Nigerian ESL classroom than the foreign British model which, though used as the standard in Nigeria as a former British colony, is culturally inappropriate in the Nigerian context and does not, therefore, appeal to the sensibilities of the students who, in their quest for communicative appropriateness in English in the Nigerian socio-cultural setting, have to use the language to reflect the Nigerian worldview.
Highlights
English, Nigeria’s official language, occupies a unique place in Nigerian education today
Sorry: used for apologizing for a wrong done as it is in native English contexts, and as a form of greeting to console or sympathize with someone who has suffered misfortune or harm. It is often used in the Nigerian context to greet someone who is bereaved, or someone involved in an accident, or even someone who sneezes, trips etc., even when the speaker is not responsible for what happened and, it reflects the Nigerian culture which demands that we show sympathy to our neighbours and console them when they are in distress so as to lessen their burden
English usage in the Nigerian socio-cultural setting, as it is reflected in the syntactic and lexico-semantic variations highlighted in this study, has been given a distinctive Nigerian coloration so as to enable it to effectively reflect the Nigerian situation
Summary
Nigeria’s official language, occupies a unique place in Nigerian education today. This is so because the model reflects the Nigerian experience, which makes its concepts more familiar to the Nigerian ESL learner (than the foreign concepts to which he or she is exposed through the sole medium of British English) and, making the teaching/ learning of ESL in Nigeria easier and more refreshing It is, against this background that this study seeks to review the syntactic and lexico-semantic variations manifested in the English of educated Nigerians so as to highlight their appropriateness within the Nigerian setting and discuss their implications and challenges in the Nigerian ESL classroom, especially with regard to how they can be effectively incorporated into the language teaching/learning process so as to assist the ESL learner to improve upon his or her performance in the language
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
