Language-in-Education Policy in Nigeria: The Reality of Teachers’ Language Choices

The study investigated teachers’ choice of the medium of instruction inpublic primary schools in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The study specifically identifiedthe languages used in mathematics classrooms in the selected schools,examined the reasons for teachers choices of language, and determined theeffects of these choices on the teaching-learning process. The data for thestudy were obtained from five mathematics teachers and fifty pupils fromfive purposively selected primary schools through ethnographic observationand structured interviews. Data collected were analysed using MyersScotton’s Matrix Language Framework model, as well as descriptive andinferential statistics. The results showed that teachers in the schools usedboth English and the pupils’ regional languages (such as Yoruba, Igbo andHausa), where the regional languages were the matrix language and Englishwas the embedded language, as the media of instruction in their classrooms.The teachers surveyed claimed that their choice of the pupils’ regionallanguages was necessitated by the fact that it allowed each pupil to learneffectively in his/her languages in a natural, meaningful way as the variousclassroom activities were being implemented. The study concluded thatthe use of pupils’ home languages in multilingual classrooms does not resultin a deficiency in learning, but is a useful strategy in classroom interactionand an efficient way of transferring knowledge to primary school pupils.