Mother Tongue As A Viable Vehicle For Enhancing The Teaching/Learning Of Oral English Among Pupils In Edo Central Senatorial District Of Edo State, Nigeria

Nigeria is made up of 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory with 774 Local Government Councils. The nation has well over 350 indigenous languages (Osime, 2011). Edo State is one of the states. The state is located in the South-South geo-political region of the nation. Edo State is politically subdivided into 3 Senatorial Districts of Central, South and North. Our research is focused on one of the 5 local government areas of the state- Esan Central Local Government Area -in view with the place of the Esan language (which is basically the indigenous language of the people) as a viable tool for the teaching/learning of Oral English among pupils in the area. The place of language in the education of a child cannot be overemphasized. Inspite of the huge nature of Nigeria, she has no National language (NL). However, the nation has official language (OL) which is the English Language (EL). In view of the foregoing, the Nigerian National Policy on Education (NPE) stresses the importance of the use of Mother Tongue (MT) in the education of a child. Our focus was to step out the challenges being faced by primary school pupils in the Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State as far as the use of Oral English (OE) is concerned. After a robust interaction with the learners, we discovered a lot of issues affecting the effective teaching/learning of Oral English. Consequently, recommendations were made. It is believed that if our recommendations are adhered to strictly, the current challenges identified would be over.