Article on Project in Nigerian Tribune
Thinking back in time about the society I grew up in back in Nigeria, the friends I grew up with and the parents I have, I have been reassured that education has a greater impact in the making of who one becomes. Nigeria, being a former English colony, has identified the role of the English language as sine qua non in educational instruction, academic, economic and political discourses in the country. Therefore, to make a successful life in a country like Nigeria, one has to be proficient in the use of the English language. The teaching of the language, however, lacks requisite and modern instructional methodologies (for example the Communicative Teaching and Backward Curriculum Design), those that have been tested and proven to enhance language teaching in primary (elementary) and secondary (high school) schools in advanced countries of the world. Given this observation, I have been reminded, as well as compelled, by issues, people and my passion to address the dwindling state of English language teaching in my community – Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. Ogbomoso is one of the foremost cities in the South-Western part of Nigeria.
My project is a conference titled “A communicative approach to English language instruction”, and it will take place in the Summer of 2020 in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. The project targets English language teachers in government-owned primary and secondary schools and a few selected private ones in the city of Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. The justification for this selection is simple. Government-owned schools are ill-funded and their students, most of whom come from homes that have little or nothing to enroll them in private schools where there are enough resources to ensure quality education, are those who would suffer for this. And one wonders what becomes of a child’s future in a school where no quality education is guaranteed in a country like Nigeria where the use of English is pertinent for a good future. Therefore, to help secure a future for these children and to help teachers learn new teaching methodologies that would not only make their work easier and effective but to also contribute to the educational development of the children, I have decided to train, with the help of proven educational facilitators, about 150 teachers from these schools in a two-day conference that focuses on their teaching needs. The project hopes to have 70 to 75 primary and secondary schools with two teachers from each school in attendance. I believe training about 150 teachers will go a long way to help a larger number of people in the city.
My project is such that will help the teachers achieve their professional goals which entirely deals with making, shaping and correcting the lives of students in my community. To this end, this project will further support that intellectual work that produces an evidential public good through relevant and meaningful collaborative research, teaching, or service in a community-engaged way is one that will help bring about progress and help young lives grow to fulfillment in a community like mine.