English Language Education

Earlier studies on Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman (DKH) have been focused on the stylistic (Adejare 1995), literary (Dasylva, 2004), and pragmatic (Odebode, 2002), Aremu, 2008) analyses of this historical and ritual drama. Apart from the foregoing, very scanty research exists on the pragmatic analysis of Nigerianisms in the English language usage in the play. In the present study, Mey's (2001). " Pragmeme " was employed in examining the English usage in the text. According to Mey (2001), 'pragmatic act' deals with situating our speech acts in a context especially when analyzing people's conversation. " Pragmatic acts " are situation – derived and situation – constrained. They are determined by the broader social context in which they happen, and they realize their goals in the conditions placed upon human action by that context. " Pragmeme, that is " generalized, " pragmatic act, " is apt in analyzing the language use in drama like that of " DKH " since when we co-opt, influence others, and set up people through language we perform " pragmatic acts " (Mey, 2001). Forty (40) utterances in 'DKH' were purposively selected for the study, while the simple percentage statistical approach was utilized to analyze Nigerianisms in English usage in the text. Our findings revealed that Nigerianisms in the play are employed in the contexts of language transfer, lexical borrowing, proverbs metaphors, pidgin, symbolism, reference; inference, shared situational knowledge (SSK) and shared cultural knowledge (SCK). Besides, participants in the play employed the different contextual backgrounds to 'pract' condemning, warning, exhorting, delaying and educating.

The low literacy rates and the dearth of quality education in Nigeria has given cause for reading interventions and programs to flow into the country to improve the literacy skills. These call for more investigation into the programs to ascertain their efficacy in teaching Nigerian children how to read and write effectively. This paper evaluates the impact of a three-day teacher training program in which a pre-test and post-test was employed to report data graphically. The program evaluated was based on the ‘Learning to Read’ methodology which is popularly called Jolly Phonics in Nigeria, a brand of synthetic phonics instruction, employed as an intervention by Kebbi state government under the auspices of Kebbi State Universal Basic Education Board in partnership with Universal Learning Solutions (ULS, 2015).  The value of the Synthetic Phonics instruction through the Jolly Phonics Instructors Pilot Training held in the state attempted to implement the teaching of literacy skills through the synthetic approach to all the primary schools in the state. This research-based program, Jolly Phonics, accentuates the development of phonemic awareness to advance the development of literacy skills in the early years of struggling learners

This paper analyses some of the factors that hinder the performance of Secondary School Students on the National Examination Council-Senior School Certificate Examination in Nigeria in the area of English as a foreign language standard examination. After juxtaposing the NECO-SSCE performances over the years, the study utilized several empirical studies, with quantitative framework, to examine these factors that both have positive or negative significance and influence in underpinning the academic performances of the learners. Several factors such as the learners' attitudinal factor, teachers' input and teaching strategy including years of experience and teaching qualifications, socioeconomic and cultural background of the learners, parenting attitude, age and gender factor, exposure to the target language, learning materials and host of others have been identified and discussed. The paper however, considers these factors as applicable to most of the standard tests on English as a target language not only peculiar to the Nigerian NECO-SSCE English examination. Finally, the paper suggests certain recommendations which chiefly centre on offering professional development to teachers as well as encourage the stakeholders to cater for the needs and comfort of the students.

The thrust of this paper is essaying on the operational characteristics of effective teaching which dwells on the perceptions about the manners and attitudes of an effective English language teacher. The paper depicts several divergent opinions that show a number of sources of evidence about the skills, knowledge, behaviours, qualities and competencies required to be an excellent teacher through a number of evidence ranging from studies about teacher behaviours associated with learning gains, intervention investigations about what can be changed, and its effect on outcomes and theory from cognitive science about learning illustrating how human brains acquire and make sense of knowledge and information. The paper finally concludes that student is the best authority in judging about the operational effectiveness of a teacher and effective teaching.

The low literacy rates and the dearth of quality education in Nigeria has given cause for reading interventions and programs to flow into the country to improve the literacy skills. These call for more investigation into the programs to ascertain their efficacy in teaching Nigerian children how to read and write effectively. This paper evaluates the impact of a three-day teacher training program in which a pre-test and post-test was employed to report data graphically. The program evaluated was based on the ‘Learning to Read’ methodology which is popularly called Jolly Phonics in Nigeria, a brand of synthetic phonics instruction, employed as an intervention by Kebbi state government under the auspices of Kebbi State Universal Basic Education Board in partnership with Universal Learning Solutions (ULS, 2015).  The value of the Synthetic Phonics instruction through the Jolly Phonics Instructors Pilot Training held in the state attempted to implement the teaching of literacy skills thr...

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in teachers' professional development through action research and teachers are expected to be engaged in action research. Thus, this study aimed to explore the perceptions of Turkish EFL teachers regarding conducting action research in their classrooms. The participants were 16 Turkish EFL teachers who enrolled in Master of Art (M.A) specialized in English Language Education at a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire consisting of two sections to deeply investigate the impacts of action research on the EFL teachers. The results revealed that teachers have positive attitudes towards action research. Even though certain barriers do exist such as lack of time, lack of knowledge, and lack of support from other teachers, the teachers believe that they have grown both personally and professionally through their experiences as teacher researchers. Teachers in this study also describe...

In response to COVID-19 disruption, a new approach to education has emerged: Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). This abrupt transition from the physical classroom to the virtual one has presented educators with both opportunities and challenges, including embracing new technologies and modes of instruction to maintain continuity for students. While educators generally displayed considerable determination and resilience, the crisis showed that current learning infrastructures are highly vulnerable to disruptions. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. The first part examines the lessons learned during the pandemic and their impact on language education. The second part explores how these lessons can contribute to the development of actionable and sustainable improvements in language education and gives directions for digital strategic thinking. As such, it can provide a framework for reflection on action and future planning in the aftermath of the pandemic and beyond.

Innovative strategies can revolutionise student learning if implemented properly. Nonetheless, teachers need sufficient training to do this. Therefore, teacher professional development programmes should be reviewed to see if they provide sufficient training for teachers to effectively implement inquiry-based instruction, since it is considered one of these innovative methods. This paper synthesises the existing literature on teacher professional development for inquiry-based instruction from the fields of education and social science between 2001 and 2022. The EBSCO host library, Scopus, Science Direct, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, Linked Papers, and Taylor & Francis data bases were used for this review. The titles, abstracts, keywords, and publication dates of the selected records were converted into Microsoft Excel, where they were then reviewed to identify the publications that were in line with the scope of the study. A total of 135 studies, including articles and dissertations, were reviewed for this study. The findings of this study provide insight into the gaps in the existing literature on inquiry-based instruction and teacher professional development, as well as suggestions for potential areas for further research.