Using Big Books for English Language Development in Early Primary Grades and Issues of Teacher Language Competencies in Northern Nigeria

• In Event: Putting the MLE back into Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) PART 1: Transition and biliteracy in early grade reading programs

Proposal

Nigeria is estimated to have over 500 languages (Eberhard, Simons, & Fennig, 2019). English is the national language and Pidgeon English is the default common language used among 30% of population, mostly the urban elite in southern and middle Nigeria (World Population Review, 2019). However, in rural and poorer areas, particularly in the north, English is rare (DIkwa & Dikwa, 2016).
The USAID-funded Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI Plus) works in the predominantly Hausa speaking states of Bauchi and Sokoto. NEI Plus has reached close to a million students in formal and non-formal schools, trained over 9,000 teachers in reading instruction, and provided over 7 million textbooks and supplementary readers to children in primary 1-3. The formal language of instruction policy is based on an early exit transition model, with Hausa used for reading and writing instruction and other subjects in primary grades 1-3, with full transition to English as language of instruction in all subjects in Primary 4. The use of Hausa to instruct reading in the early grades has been shown to increase learners’ reading performance, and the skills developed in Hausa ease transition to reading and writing in English for learning in the upper grades.
Upon request from the Ministry of Education, NEI Plus has developed primary grades 1-3 textbooks and supplemental reading materials in Hausa and English. The goal is to teach reading in Hausa and develop English language oral skills until primary grade two. In primary grade one, the new methodology has all English oral language instruction conducted through the use of Big Books from a broad range of genres including fantasy, realistic contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and informational text that appeal to and interest Primary 1 learners. Stories and lessons in English Primary 1 draw on Primary 1 Hausa vocabulary and reading comprehension concepts. Sample Teacher’s Guide lessons support teachers’ use of Big Books in the classroom to reinforce concepts of print, phonological awareness, oral language development, listening comprehension, and critical thinking. Teacher training videos of teachers using the Big Books in large classroom settings will be shown during the presentation.
This method relies heavily on the ability of the teachers to speak, understand, and read and write fluently in English. Multiple Nigeria based studies show that the inadequate English ability of teachers has a direct correlation to student achievement (DIkwa & Dikwa, 2016; Obiegbu, 2016; Sa'ad & Usman, 2014). In piloting the English Primary 1 teaching and learning materials, NEI Plus has found that teachers in Northern Nigeria have insufficient English language knowledge to effectively teach English as a second language. Inservice and preservice teacher-training must include English vocabulary, phonetics, and grammar. Most importantly teachers were found to be inadequately prepared to ask probing, critical thinking questions of the students even at the first-grade level.
This presentation will consider how to transfer from Language of Instruction (Hausa) to an aspirational language (English) when most primary school teachers lack competency in L2. Theoretical, political, and practice experiences of NEI Plus will be discussed.

Authors

• Lydia Onuoha, EDC

• Jordene Hale, Creative Associates