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1
Usoro Mark Okono. "Qualities of a good essay: an assessment of the writings of Nigerian undergraduates." International Journal on Integrated Education 3, no. 7 (2020): 82–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.31149/ijie.v3i7.498.
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This research sought to discover the capabilities of Nigerian undergraduates in handling the salient characteristics of essay in English. Such qualities as clarity, economy, simplicity, unity and coherence were the variables in the assessment. The study was conducted within the framework of the theory of descriptive linguistics and its sub-discipline of stylistics. Four topics representing argumentative, descriptive, expository and narrative essays were given to students for each of them to voluntarily choose one and write on in a strictly supervised writing test. All the essays were marked on the above stated variables. Critical case sampling strand of the purposive sampling was used to select four outstanding essays each representing one of the four departments of the Akwa Ibom State University of Nigeria. Paragraph and sentence formed some of the units of analysis. It was found out that the four subjects whose essays were analyzed proved their mettle in producing readable and creative prose in the four genres with some room for improvement. It is suggested that the Use of English programme in Nigerian universities should be extended from one to two years in addition to regular practice in writing by students and feedback from lecturers.
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Chiamaka Unachukwu, Ogechi, Goodluck C. Kadiri, and Amaka Grace Nwuche. "The Influence of the Nigerian Pidgin English on Eha-Amufu Secondary School Students’ Usage of the Standard English." International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 9, no. 4 (2020): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.9n.4p.1.
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The use of Pidgin English in the Nigerian context has gone beyond verbal communication to become more of a mode of behaviour as its expression has moved from informal conversation to formal situations. The above scenario necessitated this study which investigates Eha-Amufu secondary school students’ usage of the Standard English in view of the use of the Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE). The study sets to find out what informs the usage and the extent the Nigerian Pidgin English has affected the use of the Standard English of these students using the affective filter hypothesis from Stephen Krashen’s 2003 Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory. Using the questionnaire and essay writing as research instruments, data were collected from a sample of 200 students and willing teachers from four selected secondary schools in Eha-Amufu. Findings reveal that the use of the Nigerian Pidgin English is traceable to homes and peer group influence and has grossly affected the students’ Standard English usage. The finding that students do not use Nigerian Pidgin English in their written essays was largely contradicted by the avalanche of the Nigerian Pidgin English expressions found in the written essays of the students which also reveal its adverse effect on the Standard English both in spelling and contextual usage. This research, therefore, concludes that a deliberate and conscious effort at instilling in the minds of Eha-Amufu students the knowledge of the adverse effect of NPE usage on their academic performance and the danger of its persistent use will go a long way in mitigating the adverse effects of Nigerian Pidgin English usage on the Standard English usage among them.
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Liu, Yingqin, and William Carney. "“Nigerian Students in the American ESL Freshman Writing Class: A Site of Resistance and Accommodation”." Journal of Language Teaching and Research 8, no. 6 (2017): 1055. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0806.05.
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Two groups of undergraduate students, one composed of 15 Nigerian students studying at a public university in the US and a similar one composed of US-born students from the same university composed short essay drafts in response to the same writing prompt. These essays were read by the researchers and a group of student assistants to assess the differences between the two groups. The Nigerian students wrote longer essays with longer sentences and were more likely to use subordination than were their US counterparts. Both groups then participated in focus groups to discuss their English language education, university experiences, and attitudes toward college writing. The Nigerian students viewed the development of English writing skills as much more important than did their US counterparts but expressed frustration that their instructors in the US tended to dismiss what they saw as more eloquent writing, privileging instead a brief and concise style. The article discusses the results of the study as well as the frustration expressed by the Nigerian students and argues in support of Lee’s (2014) assertion that universities seek to “internationalize” faculty and student recruitment as well as provide better training for first-year composition instructors to equip them with a more sophisticated understanding of the varieties of the English language. The authors suggest that doing so will lead to better outcomes and increased retention for this group of international students.
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Chiedu, Rosemary Ebele. "Wrong Usage of English Tenses in Student’s Essays: The Nigerian Experience." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES 8, no. 1 (2023): 27–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.56201/ijelcs.v8.no1.2023.pg27.36.
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The paper examines wrong usage of English tenses in sentences contained in students’ essays. English as a language has distinct and peculiar rules governing its usage and the rules guiding the correct use of tenses is one of them. The theory adopted for this study is Error Analysis by Pit Corder and it is adopted because it has been observed over the years that learners and users of a second or foreign language, most often than not, transfer the grammatical and semantic features of their first language (mother tongue) to the language that is being learnt. During the study, it was discovered after a careful data analysis of students’ essays that English tenses are most of the time wrongly used by students. One of the recommendations given is that students should be encouraged and made to familiarize themselves with the distinctive English tense system so that they can easily identify their inadequacies in English tense usage and aim at improving on them to enhance their level of proficiency in English language usage generally.
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Korau, Shehu Muhammad, and Muhammad Mukhtar Aliyu. "Use of Metadiscourse in the Persuasive Writing of Nigerian Undergraduates." English Language Teaching 13, no. 4 (2020): 104. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v13n4p104.
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Persuasive writing is a very important prerequisite for undergraduates in their academic life endeavour. For the students to effectively compose good persuasive writing, they need to understand and employ metadiscourse appropriately in their writing. However, a large number of Nigerian undergraduates face lots of challenges in using metadiscourse in their writing. Therefore, this study investigated the use of metadiscourse in the persuasive writing of Nigerian undergraduates, by examining the relationship between the frequency of metadiscourse used and the persuasive writing quality. The participants of the study are second-year students of English in one of the Nigerian Universities. The data used in the study were collected through the participants’ written persuasive essays. The essays were analyzed by highlighting all the metadiscourse used in the texts. The findings indicate that the participants’ persuasive essays have a low deployment of metadiscourse which also correlates with their persuasive writing quality. It was observed that almost all the metadiscourse markers were underutilized by the participants such as endophoric markers, evidential, code glosses, hedges and self-mention. Some other metadiscourse were left out in some of the participants' persuasive essays. The study highlights some benefits of the use of metadiscourse and some implications that would improve the teaching and learning of metadiscourse, particularly in the Nigerian setting.
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Olagbaju, Oladotun Opeoluwa. "Influence of Language Anxiety and Prior Knowledge on ESL Students’ Achievement in Expository Essay in Ibadan North LGA, Nigeria." Education Research International 2021 (June 15, 2021): 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/9953303.
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Recent research efforts in teacher education in Nigeria have largely focused on innovative instructional delivery with little attention to learner-related variables such as language anxiety and prior knowledge that can influence learning outcomes in English composition in ESL classrooms. Notwithstanding these interventions, the problems of mass failure and poor quality of essays still persist in Nigerian schools. Studies have confirmed that language-related anxiety and prior knowledge in ESL classroom can influence students’ achievement irrespective of the quality of instruction received by learners in a second/foreign language classroom. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between language anxiety and prior knowledge on achievement in expository essay. Three null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance, and 350 participants were randomly selected from four senior secondary schools. Data were collected using two research instruments and the results showed that there was no significant relationship between the independent variables and students’ achievement in expository essay. Also, there were no composite and relative contributions of language anxiety and prior knowledge on students’ achievement in expository essay. The study was concluded by making recommendations to ESL teachers and students on how to improve achievement in expository writing.
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Dahunsi, Toyese Najeem. "Graduate Employability and Communication Skills: An Investigation of Nigerian Graduates’ Proficiencies and Areas of Deficiencies in Written English." World Journal of English Language 7, no. 3 (2017): 49. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v7n3p49.
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Nigeria is a West African country with English as second and official language. In this study, the proficiency levels of graduates of Nigeria’s higher educational institutions in English were investigated against ever-rising speculations that such graduates were unemployable because they do not have good communication and other employability skills. Essays written by 150 graduate job applicants were used for the research. Error Analysis was used for the identification and categorisation of errors in each essay, using grammar, lexis, punctuation and content as major categories. The first group identified (67%) had Low Proficiency Level, with poor knowledge of English grammar and grammatical applications; low vocabulary and high deficiencies in lexical selections; poor skills of punctuation, capitalisation, spelling, paragraphing and lettering; and shallow knowledge of common issues. The second group (23%) had High Proficiency Level, having fewer errors of grammar, lexis, punctuation and content relevance, adequacy, cohesion and coherence. The third group (10%) had Very High Proficiency Level, with a better mastery, understanding and applications of grammatical, lexical, punctuation and associated composition principles. A poor performance carry-over pattern in English at secondary school level was observed. This calls for serious remedial intervention by Government and all stakeholders to improve graduate employability.
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Adeyemi, Remilekun Iyabo. "I’m part of the collective: exploring the influence of L1 culture on communal representation through the use of we, us and our in Nigerian undergraduates’ written texts." Journal for Language Teaching 53, no. 2 (2021): 53–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jlt.v53i2.3.
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This study explores the influence of L1 culture on Nigerian tertiary learners’ use of first-person plural personal pronouns we, us and our in written texts to indicate the collective, i.e., the writers’ social community. The quantitative and semantic analysis of the learners’ use of the pronouns was done using the Nigerian learner English corpus (NLEC) in comparison to Louvain corpus of native English student essays (LOCNESS). The quantitative analysis indicates the overuse of first-person plural pronouns by Nigerian learners compared to their LOCNESS counterparts. The study reports on the semantic analysis and reveals that the learners’ overuse of these pronouns can be traced to their cultural background of collective shared experience, communality, inclusiveness and solidarity. This is evident in the collocates of the pronouns, e.g., ‘we live,’ ‘we have,’ ‘technology has helped us,’' ‘it gives us’, ‘our society,’ ‘our nation.’ The student-writers’ use of these pronouns indicates their involvement in issues of discourse and they emphasize collective experience. The findings of the study confirm writers make discoursal choices that align them with their L1 community which is traceable in their L2 written texts.
 Keywords: pronouns; culture; undergraduates; academic writing; student-writers; second language
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Mukhtar Aliyu, Muhammad, and Shehu Muhammad Korau. "Nigerian Undergraduates’ Awareness of Metadiscourse and its Relationship with their Persuasive Writing Quality." International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 9, no. 1 (2020): 40. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.9n.1p.40.
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Persuasive writing in second (L2) or Foreign Language (FL) is found to be a very challenging task for many undergraduates. Metadiscourse are devices used to help writers to make a connection with the audience and express ideas clearly. However, many Nigerian undergraduates are not fully aware of or do not appropriately utilise these devices in their writing. Also, little attention has been paid to the devices by researchers in the Nigerian context. Therefore, this study investigates undergraduates’ awareness of metadiscourse and its relationship with their persuasive writing performance using a correlational research design. An intact class of 56 third-year undergraduates in a local university in Nigeria was selected for the study. Data for the study were collected through a writing task in English, and a questionnaire. The essays were graded using a validated scale. The questionnaire was analysed using SPSS software. Findings of the study show that the participants have a low awareness of metadiscourse. The findings also reveal that there is a positive relationship between the participants’ awareness of metadiscourse and their persuasive writing quality. The study gives insight to researchers and lecturers, not only in the language field but in other areas, on how to improve the students’ awareness and use of metadiscourse which would eventually develop writing performance. Finally, the study makes some recommendations for further studies.
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Akinwamide, T. K. Ekiti, and F. M. Oguntade. "Facilitating Independent and Collective Writing Skill Proficiency: The Think-Pair-Share Strategy Involvement." European Journal of Linguistics 2, no. 1 (2023): 48–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.47941/ejl.1196.
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Purpose: This study investigated the effects of Think-Pair-Share (TPS) strategy and the Conventional method on students’ performance and attitude to essay writing in senior secondary schools in Ondo State.
 Methodology: The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test two-group design as well as a descriptive survey-type design. The population for the study comprised all the public Senior Secondary School (SSS) III students of the 2021/2022 Session in Ondo State. The sample for this study was 65 SSS III students that were selected purposively. The two instruments used for this study are Essay Writing Attitudinal Scale and Students’ Socio-economic Background Status (EWASSSBS) and the Essay Writing Performance Test (EWPT). The reliability of EWPT was established through the test re-test method and a reliability coefficient of 0.70 was obtained while a reliability of EWASSSBS was obtained. The scores of the respondents from single administration were subjected to the Cronbach Alpha Reliability Co-efficient test and 0.82 was obtained.
 Findings: The outcome revealed a substantial difference between the two groups Post-Treatment Performance Scores. The post-treatment performance means score for the TPS group was 15.67, whereas the post-performance mean score for the conventional group was 12.63. The results also showed that students who were taught essay writing utilising the TPS technique had a significantly different attitude.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy, and Practice: The study concluded that the TPS strategy enables student involvement in the learning process. The teachers encourage learning rather than being the exclusive source of knowledge for the students. Through collaborative learning, students have the chance to exchange ideas, respond, think creatively, discuss, critique, and assist their peers in creating better essays. As a result, we recommend that the government should ensure that English Language teachers are trained on how to use TPS strategies at regular intervals so that they can supplement the conventional method of teaching essay writing in Nigerian schools.
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Ogoke, Chinedu. "The Easy Road to the Rewriting of European Slavery and Colonization of the African People." South Asian Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 6, no. 02 (2024): 98–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.36346/sarjhss.2024.v06i02.004.
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People from Nigeria were thrown to different corners of the world in the course of slavery. The dispersal curiously created financial enduring financial fortunes for European states and their people. Many of the slaves were assembled in today’s United States of America. The Europeans returned to force their way into the communities of the Africans in the name of colonialism. Great wealth transfer occurred, which continues to this day. What is usually not mentioned is the destruction of the local people’s cultures that took place. England stage-managed a war in Nigeria; a war designed to permanently plant English foot in Nigeria. Nigeria became the kitchen for crude oil to service English lifestyle and industries. The weight of English economic program in Nigeria is too much for the natives to bear. Nigeria is further reduced to a beggar colony. The outcome is also a hopeless citizenry seeking succour in England and other parts of the world. There are deficiencies noticed in all aspects of Nigerian life. Unfortunately, there is increasing defence among Nigerians of the role of England in the predicament of Nigeria, thus throwing open the debate on colonisation. This work identifies English roles in Nigeria’s and correctly lays the blame on the West, especially England. Popular assumptions by many British people that their country is not appreciated for civilizing the Nigerians is gaining support from the young people in Nigeria. The purpose of the essay is also to initiate a vigorous re-education of young people on the subject matter. The work is influenced by debates this writer followed on Facebook. Books, newspaper and journal articles are the sources of the materials used for this essay.
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Ibhawaegbele, Faith O., and J. N. Edokpayi. "Situational Variables in Chimamanda Adichie's and Chinua Achebe's." Matatu 40, no. 1 (2012): 191–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-040001012.
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The use of the English language for literary creation has been the bane of Nigerian literature. Nigeria has a very complex linguistic system; as a result, its citizens communicate either in their indigenous languages or in English, depending on the situation in which they find themselves. The use of English in Nigerian literature in general and prose fiction in particular is influenced by both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. In their attempt to offer solutions to the problems of language in literary expression, Nigerian novelists adapt English to varying linguistic and socio-cultural contexts. This has resulted in experimentation and the employment of various creative-stylistic strategies and devices in prose fiction. Our focus in this essay is on the conditioning influences of situational variables on the language and styles of Nigerian novelists, with Chimamanda Adichie and Chinua Achebe as a case study. We shall examine and explicate how situational variables influence and impose constraints on the language and styles of novelists, and how they adapt English, which is in contact with the various indigenous languages, to the varying local Nigerian situations and experiences.
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Ezeokoli, Francis Ogbonaya, and Patience Igubor. "Improving Secondary School Students’ Achievement In English Essay Writing Using Two Modes Of Essay Structure-Based Instructional Strategies." International Journal for Innovation Education and Research 4, no. 7 (2016): 34–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.31686/ijier.vol4.iss7.563.
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Writing is a tool for communication and learning.However, students’ performance in essay writing in Nigeria has been poor. This under-achievement has been traced to ineffective methods and strategies. Literature reveals that most studies focused on innovative ways to improve students’ achievement in essay writing without attention to essay structure-based instructional strategies. This study, therefore, determined the effects of two modes of Essay Structure-Based Instructional Strategies (ESBIS) on students’ achievement in argumentative and expository (cause/effect) essays. The moderating effects of vocabulary knowledge and attitude to essay writing were also examined. The study adopted a pretest-posttest, control group, quasi-experimental design using a 3×2×3 factorial matrix. Two Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Benin City were randomly selected. Three public secondary schools from each LGA were purposively selected while two intact SS II classes were randomly assigned to each of the treatment and control groups. The instruments used include: Achievement Testsin Argumentative (r=.79) and Expository Essays (r=.80), Vocabulary Knowledge Test (r=.83), Questionnaire on Students’ Attitude to Essay Writing (r=.73). Data were analysed using ANCOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc test at 0.05 alpha level.There was significant main effect of treatment on students’ achievement in each of argumentative (F (2, 284) = 9.78;.064) and expository (F (2, 284) = 55.26;.28) essays and in both combined (F (2, 284) = 4.80;.033). The two-way interaction effect of treatment and the moderator variables on students’ achievement in each of argumentative and expository essays as well as in both combined was not significant.
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Ezekwesili and Chinyere Chinedu. "Impact of Aliteracy on Learning English as A Second Language in Nigeria." International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 8, no. 4 (2019): 60. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.8n.4p.60.
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This paper examines the impact of aliteracy on learning English as a second language in Nigeria. Genuine concern expressed by stakeholders on the poor performance exhibited by Nigerian secondary school students in English language has led to a number of inquiries for solutions to the problem. Many studies have attributed poor language performance to a number of factors but nobody has connected the apathetic stance of students towards reading to poor language performance. Their appalling performance manifests in the plethora of spelling and grammatical errors that riddle essay assignments. Writing is a productive language skill by which a student demonstrates his ability to produce grammatically correct and connected texts. This study searches for the link between students’ lack of interest in reading and their writing competence. Aliteracy is the state of being able to read but being uninterested in doing so. The data for the study were generated from students’ written essay and questionnaire. An analysis of the students’ reading habits juxtaposed with their continuous writing showed that students who were avid readers performed better than those who did not like to read. This result shows that the decline in the level and quality of language written by senior secondary school students in Nigeria can be attributed to poor reading culture.
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Waliya, Yohanna. "E-literary creativity on the dark web: Covid-19 Whatsapp bot’s interactive storytelling in WhatsApperature." Texto Digital 18, no. 2 (2022): 145–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1807-9288.2022.e86373.
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Social media affordances prioritize automatic interactive digital narrative about the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic to counteract misinformation and fake news in Nigeria. To engage the public about their health risk, WhatsApp chatbot was launched by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in collaboration with UNICEF on the U-Report platform. It is the first Nigerian multilingual SMS-based interactive chatbot to run on all mobile telecommunication networks (the dark web), WhatsApp and Facebook Messengers to address health issues. This essay describes SMS-Chatbot which offers narratives to counter health misinformation in five languages-English, Pidgin, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. A techno-discursive analysis is presented to explain the relationship between the technotext and the wreader by employing Pedro Barbosa’s theory of wreader[1] on the extracted English version which is perceived as the digital literary practice on WhatsApp, that is, “WhatsApperature”.
 
 [1] Blend of writer and reader, coined by George Landow (professor) in English. https://www.wordsense.eu/wreader/ consulted 24/10/2021 Wreader it has been used by Pedro Barbosa in Portugal since early late 1970s (Vuillemin 1999).
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Kadiri, Goodluck C., Uche Lebechi Igbokwe, Udodirim Ngozi Okebalama, and Cajetan Ikechukwu Egbe. "The use of lexical cohesion elements in the writing of ESL learners." Research in Language 14, no. 3 (2016): 221–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/rela-2016-0014.
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This study investigated the use of lexical elements of cohesion in the essay writing of students of English as a Second Language. Two hundred essays of final year students of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka were collated and analyzed by the researchers in order to identify the lexical elements used to achieve cohesion in writing. The result showed that students used three lexical elements as postulated by Gutwinski in varying degrees in their writings. These include: repetition, synonyms, and lexical sets (collocations). Students tended to use more of repetitions and made minimal use of synonyms and lexical sets to achieve cohesion in writing. This has led to poorly written essays by students. It also implies that lexical cohesion elements should be taught in schools to enable students use them appropriately in writing.
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Usman, Abdulmalik, and Dahiru Musa Abdullahi. "Productive Vocabulary Knowledge of ESL Learners." Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research 1, no. 1 (2018): 32–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.34256/ajir1814.
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The paper seeks to investigate the level of productive knowledge of ESL learners, the writing quality and the relationship between the vocabulary knowledge and the writing quality. 150 final year students of English language in a university in Nigeria were randomly selected as respondents. The respondents were asked to write an essay of 300 words within one hour. The essays were typed into Vocab Profiler of Cobb (2002) and analyzed the Lexical Frequency Profile of the respondents. The essays were also assessed by independent examiners using a standard rubric. The findings reveal that the level of productive vocabulary knowledge of the respondents is limited. The writing quality of the majority of the respondent is fair and there is a significant correlation between vocabulary and the witting quality of the subjects. The researchers posit that productive vocabulary is the predictor of writing quality and recommend various techniques through which teaching and learning of vocabulary can be improved.
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Mowarin, Macaulay. "Bilingual Verbs in Nigerian Pidgin—English Code Mixing." Studies in English Language Teaching 2, no. 1 (2014): 14. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/selt.v2n1p14.
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<p><em>This paper discusses bilingual verbs, which are intermediate forms that cannot be fully identified with neither Nigerian pidgin nor English, in Nigerian pidgin- English code mixed utterances. The process involved in the derivation of bilingual or hybrid verbs is analogous to hybrid forms in biology. The conceptual framework of this study is Myers-Scotton (1993, 2002). Matrix language frame and the types of hybrid verbs discussed in this study include, the insertion of bare verbs from English to Nigerian pidgin; the adjoinment of auxiliary /helping verbs, as well as the negative particle, in Nigerian pidgin to inserted main verbs from English which is the embedded language. Lastly, is the presence of hybrid verbs in Nigerian pidgin’s serial verb constructions. The essay concludes that bilingual/hybrid verbs constitute an integral part of the grammatical approach to code switching.</em><em></em></p>
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Bankale, Oyetayo A., Oye Taiwo, and Rukayat Olawale. "Devising Yorùbá Terminology for Phonology Terms (from letter P to letter R)." Yoruba Studies Review 8, no. 2 (2023): 47–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.8.2.134892.
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This essay, which is part three (3) of the report on the formulation of Yorùbá phonology terms from their English counterparts, discusses English phonology terms for letters P, Q, and R and the Yorùbá counterparts, totaling ninety-one (91) terms numbered from 187 to 278.[1] Preceding letters A to O have been discussed in part one and part two of this report, numbers 1 to 104, letters A to G, and numbers 105 to 186, letters H to O, respectively. In this report, we compiled these terms in English, alphabetically arranged, from letter P to letter R, and developed their Yorùbá equivalents. In doing this, we extracted these phonology terms from three phonology textbooks and two specialized/technical dictionaries on linguistics and phonology. We employed the Information Processing Model (IPM) framework. Some of the terms developed are palatalization, ìso̩dàfàjàpè, paragoge ìfìró-bò̩parí, parasitic harmony àǹkóò àfòmó̩, parse ìpínsífó̩rán-ìhun, partial overlapping ìwo̩nú-ara e̩lé̩be̩, phonaestheme fóníìmù-àyo̩túnyo̩, phonemic overlapping ìpòórá fóníìmù, phonological phrase boundary ààlà àpólà fonó̩ló̩jì, phonological prime fó̩nrán-akérépin fonó̩ló̩jì, quantity-sensitive feet è̩wo̩n-atéńté aníwò̩n-agbe̩gé̩, recessive vowel fáwè̩lì àdínkù, redundancy rule òfin aléélè̩
 [1] See Yoruba – The Journal of Yoruba Studies Association of Nigeria, Volume 12:1, January 2023 and Volume 12:2, June 2023 for the first 2 of the four-part essays.
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Nwosu-Okoli, Ifeoma, and Ngozi Anyachonkeya. "The Language of Propaganda in Governance: The Nigerian Situation." European Scientific Journal, ESJ 19, no. 8 (2023): 85. http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esj.2023.v19n8p85.
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Language is a unique gift to humanity by the Omniscient God. By means of language, we build or end a relationship, forge alliance, build bridges of unity and cooperation among peoples and groups. By means of language, also, we find a viable instrument to achieve participation and exclusion in political and diplomatic maneuvering. Formal or informal discourse may be achieved through vocal utterance, written medium or even paralinguistic features. Language, in effect, plays inestimable role in all aspects of life. This paper, in a special way, examines the impact of language in governance. Since English is Nigeria’s official language, the essay has, by purposeful random sampling, chosen the meta language of English, of all the myriads of languages spoken in Nigeria, to engage our discourse and to ascertain the impact of language in governance. Again, since charity, they say, begins at home (but should not end there), the essay has chosen Nigeria to query the impact of the English language in (political) governance. The paper upholds the platitude which holds that much is expected from the one to whom much is given. In view of this, the study asserts that political governance in Nigeria is hard work for the fact that Nigeria is a conglomerate of peoples, national groups and tongues yoked together by the Lugardian amalgamation of January 1, 1914. The salient index that wields the fragile nation state together is diversity, amidst mutual suspicion among the diverse ethnic groups. The essay uses literary or library research to probe into the recesses of language and language theories for recommending to the political leaders in governance how they should manage language so that our beloved nation is not set ablaze as a result of language mismanagement.
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Bello, Idaevbor, and James O. Okpiliya. "Nigerian Children’s Literature." Matatu 49, no. 1 (2017): 15–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-04901002.
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This essay argues for the potential of children’s literature in Nigeria as a genre serving as a means of building nationhood in the minds of children growing up in the country. It posits that because of the greed of the ruling elites, the potential in terms of both human and natural resources was frittered away after independence, thereby vitiating the function of children’s literature in helping reinforce Nigeria’s presence in the comity of nations. It is still possible to retrace our steps as a country by progressively deploying such literature, through its themes and character delineation, to inculcating in children a sense of nationhood and patriotism so they can relate across both ethnic and religious divisions to espouse ideals as a people with a common destiny. The literature that is the focus here is that written in English as the language of interaction among the different ethnic groups in the country, and as the language of instruction in our schools.
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Oladotun Opeoluwa Olagbaju and Nurudeen Oluwaseun Jimoh. "Language exposure and subject familiarity as correlates of senior secondary school students’ achievement in narrative writing." Technium Social Sciences Journal 7 (May 6, 2020): 98–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.47577/tssj.v7i1.463.
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Narrative writing is often an option in English composition examination, especially in WAEC/NECO conducted English language Paper 1. Performance in essay writing has been found to determine the overall success in English language. Efforts to improve students’ performance in the subject have largely focused on instructional strategies without much attention to process-based variables such as language exposure and subject familiarity that can influence learning outcomes in ESL classrooms. Despite the contributions of these studies to pedagogical practices in ESL classroom, students’ achievement in English composition has not improved significantly. However, process-related variables such as quality and volume of exposure to the target language and subject familiarity have been found to predict learning outcomes in a second/foreign language classroom. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between language exposure and subject familiarity on achievement in narrative essay. The study tested three null hypotheses and a total of 350 participants were randomly selected from four senior secondary schools in Ibadan North Local Government Area, Nigeria. Data was collected using two research instruments and the results showed a positive non-significant relationship between the independent variables and students’ achievement in narrative essay. Also, there were no composite and relative contributions of language exposure and subject familiarity to students’ achievement in expository essay.
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Tamunobelema, Isaac, and Joseph Onyema Ahaotu. "Towards a Research Agenda on Individual Differences in ELT in Nigeria." Journal of Gender and Power 14, no. 2 (2020): 67–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/jgp-2020-0014.
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Abstract There are a variety of individual differences that English language teaching (ELT) professionals cannot afford to ignore. This essay is based on a premise that teaching and learning English in Nigeria’s multilingual background of 526 languages (Ethnologue, 2018) present an extraordinary context of multiculturalism and individual differences in the language classroom. ELT professionals in such a context require significant expertise in the application of inclusive practices. The essay identified gaps in the praxis and policy dimensions of Nigerian ELT practice relating to individual differences and suggested a research focus on these two areas. It concluded that teachers should adopt clear, empirically tested methodologies to cater for the different students in the class, create good relationships in the classroom to develop learner self-confidence, integrate activities and tasks that clearly appeal to different learning styles and personalities, personalize learning as much as possible, create learner autonomy, and pay attention to cultural variations among L2 learners.
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Tompte, Ndoubangar, and Gilbert Tagne Safotso. "A Study of Some Morphological Problems of Chadian Learners of English." Journal of Education, Teaching and Social Studies 6, no. 2 (2024): p100. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/jetss.v6n2p100.
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The study of new Englishes has been the focus of many researchers who evaluate the spoken and written quality of non-native English in different parts of the globe. This study investigates morphological errors made by Chadian learners of English in their written and oral production. 250 essays by Première and Terminale learners of Lycée Pascal Yoadimnadji and 300 ones by students of the University of Doba were scrutinised. This was completed with oral presentations and free conversations on topics of general interest by 30 secondary school learners and 50 university students. The paper particularly looked at their production of plural forms, third person singular markers, omission/addition, and the production of the -ed morpheme of the simple past tense and past participle. The results show that irrespective of their levels of education, Chadian learners of English generally omit or mispronounce the inflection morphemes in their various forms. The findings also reveal that some of the errors found are general features of non-native English, while others are specific to Chadian setting where English varieties from Cameroon (CamFE), Nigeria (NigE & Pidgin English), and from Sudan lead to a real mixture in classrooms.
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Tompte, Ndoubangar, and Gilbert Tagne Safotso. "A Study of Some Morphological Problems of Chadian Learners of English." Studies in English Language Teaching 12, no. 2 (2024): p121. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/selt.v12n2p121.
Full textAbstract:
The study of new Englishes has been the focus of many researchers who evaluate the spoken and written quality of non-native English in different parts of the globe. This study investigates morphological errors made by Chadian learners of English in their written and oral production. 250 essays by Première and Terminale learners of Lycée Pascal Yoadimnadji and 300 ones by students of the University of Doba were scrutinised. This was completed with oral presentations and free conversations on topics of general interest by 30 secondary school learners and 50 university students. The paper particularly looked at their production of plural forms, third person singular markers, omission/addition, and the production of the -ed morpheme of the simple past tense and past participle. The results show that irrespective of their levels of education, Chadian learners of English generally omit or mispronounce the inflection morphemes in their various forms. The findings also reveal that some of the errors found are general features of non-native English, while others are specific to Chadian setting where English varieties from Cameroon (CamFE), Nigeria (NigE & Pidgin English), and from Sudan lead to a real mixture in classrooms.
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Concilio, Carmen. "The 'Cockroach' Waste and Wasted Life in World Literatures in English." Le Simplegadi 19, no. 21 (2021): 80–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.17456/simple-175.
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In this essay I intend to pursue a comparative reading of three postcolonial texts – in their intertextual and counter-canonical relationship with Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) – that deal with the ethics, but also the aesthetics, of the relationship between humans and animals. By doing so, and with the help of the Kafkian critical apparatuses, particularly Deleuze and Guattari’s critical contribution (1986), which will be the core of this study, I will also examine the nexus between literature and the environment, with particular emphasis on waste, also taking into consideration the paradigms of necropolitics (Mbembe 2003) and of écart (Jullien 2012). Kafka’s Curse (1997), by South African writer Achmat Dangor, Cockroach (2008) by Canadian-Lebanese Rawi Hage, and Blackass (2015) by Nigerian Igoni Barrett will be here analysed and scrutinised.
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Fyfe, Alexander. "Teaching Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard as Part of a Decolonial Literature Syllabus." Pedagogy 23, no. 3 (2023): 567–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/15314200-10640175.
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Abstract This essay argues that The Palm-Wine Drinkard ([1952] 2014), a tale of a quest through the African bush by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, does important decolonial work and is therefore an excellent candidate for inclusion on a literature syllabus that aims to introduce students to decolonial thinking. After introducing Tutuola's work and considering some of the issues at stake for a decolonial pedagogy, it argues that Drinkard provides an active reading experience that creates powerful opportunities in the classroom to challenge students’ assumptions about how colonialism was experienced by colonized populations, the valences of the human, and uses of the English language. In so doing, the essay highlights potential teachable moments in the text that may be useful to instructors who wish to adopt a decolonial approach in their literature courses.
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Opeibi, Tunde Olusola. "One message, many tongues." Journal of Language and Politics 6, no. 2 (2007): 223–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jlp.6.2.06ope.
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The essay sets off by arguing that since the 1950s, there has been a growing enthusiasm in political advertising discourse. This was because political advertising became prominent as an effective communicative and publicity tool in the 1952 U.S. presidential election campaign when Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed its instruments to win the most prestigious and highest political post in the U.S. (Reece 2003). Since that time, several rhetorical strategies have been adopted by politicians all over the world to cast and communicate political messages to their various audiences. Most previous research efforts appear to be in the monolingual or L1 settings (e.g. Chilton and Schäffner 1997; Obeng 1997). In this study, we examine how Nigerian politicians demonstrate their bilingual creativity in an innovative manner, employing linguistic facilities to publicise and sell their political programmes, especially in the use of media multilingualism, a novel persuasive strategy that has come to characterise political campaign texts. Specifically, we consider this recent phenomenon in Nigerian political discourse in which political candidates ‘marry’ and exploit the resources of both the exogenous (English) and indigenous languages (and sometimes along with pidgin) in the same campaign texts in order to woo voters. So the term ‘media multilingualism’ here is taken to be the variety of code-mixing and codeswitching in written political texts. The paper thus examines inter/intrasententially code-mixed facts found in the written campaign texts and discusses their functional implications especially as part of the discourse strategies deployed by the politicians to elicit support and woo voters to support their candidatures. Relevant literature on codeswitching and theories (e.g. Speech Accommodation Theory) that provide theoretical underpinning for the study are reviewed. An attempt is also made to demonstrate that codeswitching in political discourse is an interpersonal strategy that can be used to create, strengthen or destroy interpersonal boundaries, and thus it functions as a discourse strategy for pragmatic and strategic purposes (Wei 2003). The framework for analysis follows the insights provided in Rational Choice Models (RC) as seen in the works of Myers-Scotton (1993), Myers-Scotton and Agnes Bolonyai (2001) and Wei (2003). The essay concludes by presenting a summary of some important analytical observations that arose from the study. It also suggests that a similar pattern is bound to occur in political discourse found in other L2 contexts. The data set for this work came from selected political texts produced during the 2003 governorship and presidential elections campaigns in Nigeria and sourced from selected Nigerian national newspapers.
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F. M., Oguntade. "Sex Effects on Essay Writing Performance under Selected Teaching Strategies in Senior Secondary Schools in Ondo State Nigeria." International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science VII, no. X (2023): 1972–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.47772/ijriss.2023.701150.
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This study examined how sex affects students’ performance in essay writing under Reading-Writing (RW), Think-Pair-Share (TPS), combination (RW&TPS) strategies, and conventional methods in secondary schools in Ondo State Nigeria. The population for the study comprised all the public Senior Secondary School (SSS) II students of the 2019/2020 Session in Ondo State. The sample for this study was 308 SSS II students that were selected from public senior secondary schools, using a multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument used for this study is the Essay Writing Performance Test (EWPT). The data collected for this study were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that there was a significant sex gap in the performance of students taught essay writing using various strategies in Ondo State’s SSS. Given the importance of sex differences in the performance of students taught essay writing using various strategies, English language teachers should be aware of the differences in the responses of boys and girls in their classes to various essay topics.
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AKINSEYE, TOLULOPE. "Exploring interactive metadiscourse as a practical approach to enhancing academic writing skills of newly admitted undergraduate students in Nigeria." English for Academic Purposes (EAP): New frontiers in learning to write in English 10, no. 2 (2023): 44–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.21283/2376905x.1.10.2.2756.
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Academic writing is a crucial aspect of undergraduate education, particularly for students in English as Second Language (ESL) contexts. This study investigates the use of interactive resources as discursive strategies in enhancing the academic writing skills of ESL undergraduates in Nigeria. A sample of 100 expository essays was used. The research employs both qualitative and quantitative designs. The qualitative component analyses the types and usages of discursive strategies employed in the selected expository writing, while the quantitative component involves the occurrence of these strategies. The results reveal transitional markers, frame markers, and code glosses were the most frequently used interactive markers in academic writing, while evidential and endophoric markers were used less frequently. These findings underscore the pedagogical significance of incorporating interactive resources into the teaching of academic writing skills for ESL undergraduate students.
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Brodzki, Bella. "History, Cultural Memory, and the Tasks of Translation in T. Obinkaram Echewa's I Saw the Sky Catch Fire." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 114, no. 2 (1999): 207–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/463392.
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Across a range of disciplines and discourses, translation has become a central concern for many scholars working in the humanities. Indeed, the notion of translation has begun to inflect the most compelling and consequential debates on meaning and representation. My essay gives attention to Walter Benjamin's redemptive and generative notion of translation as survival and to postmodern currents in translation studies alongside a contemporary Nigerian diasporic novel written in English, I Saw the Sky Catch Fire. Framed by a passing on of the story of the Women's War (the Igbo women's tax revolt against the British in 1929), Echewa's narrative critiques the complicitous practices of translation, colonialism, and anthropology. In this exemplary instance of a type of hybrid postcolonial textuality, processes of intergenerational and intercultural transmission, conceived as both acts of translation and instruments of historical consciousness, perform as well as disrupt the work of cultural memory.
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Nwachukwu–Agbada, J. O. J. "Ezenwa–Ohaeto: Poet of the Genre." Matatu 33, no. 1 (2006): 153–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757421-033001027.
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Ezenwa–Ohaeto was a poet of immense artistic vision. He was a conscious member of the Nigerian and African polity and a perspicacious user of the African oral tradition, particularly the Igbo afflatus/affiliation of it. A poet of ideas and style, Ezenwa–Ohaeto was to adopt principally as his stylistic tool the Igbo traditional genre of satire called In this essay, effort has been made towards identifying his use of the mode in terms of what he took from it and what in turn he gave to African poetry. It is demonstrated that Ezenwa–Ohaeto utilized satire to draw attention to the ills in the land. While he did so, he used the humour in to smoothe his way through. Although he was regularly concerned with the fate of fellow nationals, he did so light-heartedly, combining the use of airy Igbo iconic figures with mediated English and pidgin variety. Ezenwa–Ohaeto thus left behind an original, captivating and enchanting poetic tradition
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Silverman, Raymond A., and David Owusu-Ansah. "The Presence of Islam Among the Akan of Ghana: A Bibliographic Essay." History in Africa 16 (1989): 325–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171790.
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The primary geographical focus for the historical study of Islam in west Africa, until recently, was the western and central Sudan. As the often-cited J. S. Trimingham wrote (1962:7) “The Guinea States in the south lie outside our sphere since they were not in contact with the Sudan states and were uninfluenced by Islam.” Trimingham's conclusion paralleled those of early twentieth-century French and English scholars who dealt with the issue of Islam in west Africa. Paul Marty's voluminous studies, dating from the second decade of this century, dealt with the Islamic and Muslim-influenced traditions of the various peoples of Francophone west Africa. H. R. Palmer, one of the early British writers of this century, concentrated on the northern territories of Nigeria, where Islam has enjoyed a long history.Two factors explain the focus of these scholars on the western and central Sudan. First, the better known Islamic-influenced kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem-Bornu were all located in this region. Second, the Islamic states of the western and central Sudan, in particular, presented the greatest problem to both the French and the British during the early periods of the colonial era. Therefore, the focus on this area may have been motivated by the desire of these writers to understand the Islamic factor. Whatever the motivation of writers like Marty, Palmer, and their associates, Trimingham was wrong to conclude that the “the Guinea States” (i.e., the peoples living in the coastal forest belt) were “uninfluenced by Islam.”
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Usuanlele, Uyilawa, and Toyin Falola. "A Comparison of Jacob Egharevba's Ekhere Vb Itan Edo and the Four Editions of Its English Translation, A Short History Of Benin." History in Africa 25 (1998): 361–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3172194.
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One of the most popular and most widely cited books in the study of precolonial Africa, particularly of the forest region, is Jacob U. Egharevba's A Short History of Benin. It was first published in the Edo language as Ekhere vb Itan Edo in 1933, and due to its popularity and very high demand, it quickly sold out and was reprinted in 1934. It was then translated by the author and published in English as A Short History of Benin in 1936. This English-language edition has likewise been a bestseller with four editions—the first edition in 1936, the second in 1953, the third in 1960, and the fourth one in 1968, which in turn has had reprints in Ibadan (1991) and Benin City (1994).In 1959 Leoham Adam, Curator of the Ethnographical Collection of Melbourne University in Australia, who claimed to have first read the book in the 1930s, commended Short History for its useful contributions to the study and understanding of African societies. The late R.E. Bradbury, in writing the first foreword to the book's third edition in 1960, claimed that it”…has become something of a classic, known and relied upon not only in Nigeria, but by scholars all over the world, [as]… a valuable, indeed an indispensable, pioneering work.” In a more recent critique, Adiele Afigbo asserted that the book and its thesis has “much support from many respected historians and ethnographers… and figure prominently not only in undergraduate essays but also in Masters and Doctoral dissertations.”
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Nwosu-Okoli, Ifeoma, and Ngozi Anyachonkey. "The Language of Propaganda in Governance: the Nigerian Situation." European Scientific Journal ESJ 9 (September 20, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esipreprint.9.2022.p222.
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Language is a unique gift to humanity by the Omniscient God. By means of language, we build or end a relationship, forge alliance, build bridges of unity and cooperation among peoples and groups. By means of language, also, we find a viable instrument to achieve participation and exclusion in political and diplomatic maneuvering. Formal or informal discourse may be achieved through vocal utterance, written medium or even paralinguistic features. Language, in effect, plays inestimable role in all aspects of life. This paper, in a special way, examines the impact of language in governance. Since English is Nigeria’s official language, the essay has, by purposeful random sampling, chosen the meta language of English, of all the myriads of languages spoken in Nigeria, to engage our discourse and to ascertain the impact of language in governance. Again, since charity, they say, begins at home (but should not end there), the essay has chosen Nigeria to query the impact of the English language in (political) governance. The paper upholds the platitude which holds that much is expected from the one to whom much is given. In view of this, the study asserts that political governance in Nigeria is hard work for the fact that Nigeria is a conglomerate of peoples, national groups and tongues yoked together by the Lugardian amalgamation of January 1, 1914. The salient index that wields the fragile nation state together is diversity, amidst mutual suspicion among the diverse ethnic groups. The essay uses literary or library research to probe into the recesses of language and language theories for recommending to the political leaders in governance how they should manage language so that our beloved nation is not set ablaze as a result of language mismanagement.
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FLORENCE ADEOTI, Yusuf. "ssessment of Common English Spelling Mistakes Among Junior Secondary School Students In Nigeria: The Need for Counselling." Journal of Education in Black Sea Region 3, no. 1 (2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.31578/jebs.v3i1.126.
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One of the dominant and pervasive problems in Nigeria and Africa at large is the language. Language being a potent vehicle of transmitting cultures, values, norms and beliefs from generation to generation, remains a central factor in determining the status or nature of any nation. In Nigeria, English language is the official language of communication; it is referred to as “Lingua Franca”. However, its knowledge is not sufficient. The goals of the article were to define the types of spelling mistakes in the English Language and the most dominant errors made by junior secondary school students, to find out what the level of students’ performance in essays in terms of spelling is, and what the causes of spelling mistakes are among junior secondary school students. A conclusion was made that omission and addition of letters are the typical spelling errors, students’ attitude towards the second language was found as the major reason of low level of spelling skills. Male students were found less successful than female students and spelling skills’ level was found different according to private vs. state schools and urban vs. rural schools.
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Tomori, Oyewale. "Under-Developing Nigeria: The Conspiracy Of Science And Society." Proceedings of the Nigerian Academy of Science 10, no. 1 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.57046/mbbd3812.
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Delivering one of the Academy lectures is a distinctive and unique honour. I want to express sincere gratitude and appreciation to the President and Fellows of the Nigerian Academy of Science for providing me with this incomparable and inimitable opportunity coming, as it is, as the Academy celebrates its silver jubilee and soon after my tenth year as a Fellow of the Academy. I thought I should use the opportunity to examine the role of science in our development, to see how science and society have interacted and how Nigeria has benefited from such a marriage. I also wished to examine the role of the Nigerian scientist in a country that has little respect for learning, a near utter disregard for excellence, a disdain for quality and brilliance. We live in a country that celebrates mediocrity and places the mundane on the golden pedestal of repute. You may suspect from the onset that I am a frustrated person. I may sound annoyed and displeased about the-situation of science and technological development in Nigeria. Quite the contrary, I assure you I am not. I am only in a state of agony and lamentation for my country. I am mourning for a lost past, a disastrous present, and an unknown future. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, I declare that science, scientists, and the society have all conspired to under develop our beloved country. Do not be amazed that I am starting with the conclusion, because a few years ago, so much unpredictable and undesirable things could happen in the short space of time it takes to deliver a one-hour lecture, ridiculous things that could prevent us from hearing the conclusion of the lecture. For example, NEPA could strike or the Senate Human Rights and Fair Play Sub-Committee may decide to send police in here to drive all of us out because this hall is required to hold a reception in honour of one of her members who has just received the Honorary Doctorate Degree in Jurisprudence and Human Rights. But I am assured that we live in a new country, where NEPA is the New Electric-Power Authority. A new country, where I am free to say what is on my mind as a free citizen of this beloved country. A new country, where there is respect for human dignity and justice. A new country, where there is respect for liberty, where corruption is rare, where the benefits of science is within the reach of the majority of the population. Please do not laugh, as that was my dream for Nigeria forty year ago. Forty years ago, I sat for the Cambridge School Certificate at my alma mater, The Government College, Ughelli, in the Delta State of today. I remember vividly the essay topic I wrote for the English paper one. It was titled: Nigeria, twenty years from now. I wrote, and wrote, till my fingers ached in cramps of excitement. I was excited for the future of my dear country, and I wrote furiously. I dreamt dreams and wrote my dreams on paper, Oh, I saw a country where tribe and tongue differed, but in brotherhood we stood, I saw a vision of a country where Nigerians all were proud to serve our dear motherland. In my- dream, I saw macadamized roads criss-crossing the entire land of Nigeria. Every house had running potable water, where electricity never ‘blinked ‘for one day. Only those who chose not to go, did not attend the new primary and secondary schools found all over the country. Our universities were offering courses relevant for the development of our country. Technical schools and polytechnics dotted every nook and corner of Nigeria, training people who turned Nigeria into a technological paradise, people who made Nigeria a beauty to behold. So, it was it a delight to be sick in the Nigeria of my dream. We had hospitals where good care with humanitarian touch marked the order of the day. There were no armed robbers as those who would have chosen the profession of armed robbery were in good schools or polytechnics. Nigeria in 1982, was the utopia. I wrote with the fervour of a young man who was very proud of his motherland. A teenager, who wanted to live and die for his country. I had plans for myself too. I would go into science, maybe medicine, maybe engineering. I would discover cures for diseases or build bridges across the river Ethiope in Sapele, and others linking all the riverside towns of Nigeria’s delta and mangrove swamps. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, that was 4O-years ago.
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Ogunyemi, Kehinde Olufemi. "Class Size and Self-Esteem as Determinants of Student Learning Outcomes in Essay Writing." Journal of Educational Research and Practice 12, no. 1 (2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.5590/jerap.2022.12.1.11.
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This study was carried out mainly to investigate the effects of class size and self-esteem on student achievement in—and attitude toward—English essay writing. The study was influenced by earlier research reports indicating that the large class sizes prevalent in Nigerian schools may be detrimental to student academic and emotional well-being. The study employed an ex post facto research design, as no attempt was made to alter the pre-existing conditions in the schools. Three hundred and thirty-five (335) Senior Secondary School 2 students from nine purposively selected schools participated in the study. An achievement test in essay writing (<em>r</em> = 0.7); attitude toward essay writing questionnaire <em>(r</em> = 0.72); and self-esteem questionnaire (<em>r</em> = 0.84) were the instruments used for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using analysis of covariance. All hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that there was a significant effect of class size on student achievement in essay writing, whereas class size had no significant effect on attitude toward essay writing. Results also showed that there was no significant effect of self-esteem on student achievement in—and attitude toward—essay writing. Based on these findings, it was recommended that the government should ensure that classrooms are not overcrowded.
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Ibrahim, Aisha Abdullahi. "Effect of the Use of Writing Rubrics in Enhancing Creative Writing among Senior Secondary School Students in Sokoto State, Nigeria." Asian Journal of Advanced Research and Reports, May 20, 2022, 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.9734/ajarr/2022/v16i630475.
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This quantitative quasi-experimental study investigated effect of the use of writing rubrics in enhancing creative writing among Senior Secondary School Students (SSS) in Sokoto State, Nigeria. The objective was to find out if the use of writing rubrics in creative writing will improve students’ writing ability. Three research questions along with three null hypotheses guided the conduct of the research. The study used research adviser (2006) to select 364 participants from SSS 2 out of the total number of 12,220 students in SSS2 in the state to serve as samples for the study. A Quasi-experimental design was used where a pretest, treatment and post-test were conducted. The researcher developed test instrument called Essay Writing Performance Test (EWPT) which was used to measure students’ writing ability and collect data for the study. A pilot study was launched to establish the reliability of the instrument which indicated the reliability index of 0.76 using Pearson Product Movement Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC). Intact classes served as Experimental and Control Groups respectively. The Experimental Group received instruction on rubrics used in creative writing while the Control Group received instruction on creative writing with the conventional English text. Findings from the research revealed that participants in the Experimental Group performed better than those in the Control Group. Based on the findings, it was discovered that using writing rubrics in teaching creative writing would help students to write better in content development, organization of ideas and use of good expression.
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-, Md Shams Tabrez. "Importance and Applicability of Studying Postcolonial Literature." International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research 5, no. 6 (2023). http://dx.doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2023.v05i06.8724.
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The word “postcolonialism” is frequently used to describe all the civilizations impacted by imperialism from the time of colonisation to the present. Postcolonialism refers to challenges and disagreements that have persisted between the East and the West ever since the colonial era. By dispelling stereotypes about orientals, it aims to study and analyse colonialism’s effects and restore the identity of independent oriental states. It covers works by authors from countries that the British formerly colonised, including Australia, Nigeria, Canada, Kenya, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Jamaica, and more. These nations are also referred to as Third World nations. This essay also discusses recurring themes and motifs including “identity,” “language,” and “racism,” as well as their distinctive places, points of view, and storytelling techniques. Because this movement has some political and historical undertones, it is important to carefully consider them. It is necessary to give a critical analysis of a variety of representative authors, including Lessing, Rushdie, Achebe, Derek Walcott, Fanon, J. M. Coetzee, and Ondaatje, as well as certain female authors like Isabelle Illende, Jamaica Kincaid, and Eavan Boland. Additionally, a few exemplary pieces by some of the most well-known writers associated with the literary movement postcolonialism are presented critically. Examining the postcolonial components in well-known literary works like The Grass is Singing, Midnight's Children, Things Fall Apart, The English Patient, Ceremony, and Disgrace as well as Decolonizing the Mind and A Small Place is necessary.
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Allatson, Paul. "Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 5, No. 2, July 2008." PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 5, no. 2 (2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v5i2.847.
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This special issue of PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies is entitled ‘Italian Cultures: Writing Italian Cultural Studies in the World,’ guest edited by Ilaria Vanni (University of Technology Sydney). The issue aims at updating existing scholarship and scoping the proliferation of interests in the growing field of Italian cultural studies, whether conducted in Italy or outside that country. The issue proceeds from the premise that cultural studies practitioners write multiple Italies within Italy itself and from provincialized Italies, with a perspective that is both global and informed by specific local knowledge. As Vanni says in her introduction to the special issue, a number of questions arise when critics attempt both to imagine and work within the relatively recent field of Italian cultural studies: ‘Is there a specific genealogy to the study of cultures in Italy that intersects with the Anglophone definition of cultural studies? Is Italian cultural studies confined to cultural practices in Italy, or does it expand to include the cultural practices of the Italian diaspora? If there is an Italian cultural studies tradition, where is it? What do Italian cultural studies academics write about?' The contributions included here respond to such questions by drawing on a range of disciplinary and critical traditions to problematise received ideas about what Italy signifies and for whom.
 
 This issue of PORTAL also contains an essay and two cultural works in its cultural works section. ‘In the Age of Schizophrenia, Icebergs, and Things that Grip the Mind,’ from the Vietnam-based visual artist, curator, and writer, Sue Hajdú, is an evocative meditation on Saigon as represented in the work of five Vietnamese photographers— Ngo Dinh Truc, Lam Hieu Thuan, Nguyen Tuong Linh, Bui The Trung Nam, and Bui Huu Phuoc— who were born in the 1970s and whose work is reproduced by permission here. In her response to these young artists’ representations of contemporary Saigon, Hajdú notes how each photographer is inevitably grappling with the historically and nationally specific notion of contemporary Vietnamese time, ‘the monumental demarcation line’ signified by 1975. We also include in the cultural works section a suite of Spanish and English-language poems, ‘From/De Infernal : romantic,’ by Sydney based Vek Lewis, and a poem entitled ‘Mutiple Strokes’ by the Nigerian writer and critic, Obododimma Oha.
 
 Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committee