Abstract
The issue of declining quality of education in Nigeria is of serious national concern and quality language education is not an exception. A wide range of factors have been pointed out by experts as being responsible for this situation. Our purpose in this paper is to discuss possible ways of improving on the quality of language education being that the quality of an educational system cannot transcend that of the teachers. The paper contends that for quality language education to be provided, the teacher must be effective; he must be well grounded in both language and literature to effectively impart quality language education. The paper examines the interwoven relationship between language and literature and postulates that merely having many years of classroom experience does not automatically make one an effective teacher. It also discusses several other methods that could be adopted in teaching so as to improve on the quality of language education being provided. The paper concludes that the delicate relationship between language, literature and effective teaching must be sufficiently appreciated by the language teacher in order for the objectives of language course to be attained.
Highlights
We believe that this topic is apt as it has the potential for addressing the decline in the quality of education in Nigeria, which is an issue of serious national concern
We believe that for every educational system, there are aims and objectives and its success or otherwise is measured by the extent to which the educational system achieves such aims and objectives. It is for this reason that we strongly suggest that as language teachers at whatever level we operate, our ability to provide quality education will essentially be measured by the extent to which we groom, nurture and produce individuals who will possess the basic language skills and demonstrate that knowledge in all given language situations; for that is basically what we do as language teachers: imparting the four basic skills at whatever level we teach be it at the elementary, primary, secondary or tertiary level
From the foregoing, it is clear that nothing can be more self restraining than entertaining the illusion of “effective teaching” without literature because literature affords language learners the opportunity to learn how language works in real contexts
Summary
We believe that this topic is apt as it has the potential for addressing the decline in the quality of education in Nigeria, which is an issue of serious national concern. Our task here is quite a simple one: to trigger off a healthy discourse by those involved in language education at all levels for our mutual benefit as language teachers and better position ourselves to discharge the onerous responsibility of providing quality education to students placed under our care. It could be observed that there is a clear link among the key concepts in the title of this paper – language, literature, teacher effectiveness and quality education. Our contention is that for “quality (language) education” to be provided, the teacher must be effective and this is where the relationship between language and literature is not merely important but critical. This paper posits that a teacher who wants to provide “quality (language) education” must be well grounded in both language and literature for it is only by so doing can he be effective in discharging his duties creditably
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