Prospects and Constraints of Teaching and Learning Oral English in Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria: A Case Study of Selected Secondary Schools

Abstract

This paper investigates the prospects and constraints in the teaching and learning of Oral English at the Senior Secondary School level in Nigeria, using selected secondary schools as case study. Oral English is a discrete aspect of the curriculum of English studies at the secondary school level of education in Nigeria. In Oral English, students are taught segmental and suprasegmental sounds of English RP (Received Pronunciation). Being non-native speakers of English, Senior Secondary School students/SSCE candidates are expected to be conscious of English sounds that are different from those in their native languages. One of the goals of teaching Oral English at the SSCE level of secondary school education in Nigeria is to address the problem of negative transfer of the phonological features of mother tongue (MT) into the phonological corpora of second language (L2), which is English (in the case of Nigeria). The theoretical frameworks of this study are Interference and Intraference theories. The study concludes that although proficiency in English guarantees learners the success they desire in SSCE and prepares them for career needs, the Oral English component of SSCE is not effectively taught owing to some factors which include teacher-incompetence and lack of language laboratories. Consequently, failure persists in the Oral English component of the SSCE, and because it is part of the English Language paper, overall performance in the subject declines.