Abstract

THE RELEVANCE OF MOTHER TONGUE (MT) AS A LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING: THE TIV LANGUAGE IN FOCUS

Anyagh, I.P, B. I. Imoko, and E. I. O?kwu

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Abstract The paper considered the relevance of Mother Tongue (MT) as a language of instruction in teaching/learning of mathematics with a focus on Tiv language. The relevance of the use of MT was reviewed worldwide. In Nigeria, the use of MT in teaching/learning was given recognition quite early by the Christian Missionaries that introduced Western education to us but the elites preferred the use of English language as a kind of pride in our educational system. The use of the second language instead of the first language in teaching/ learning has been identified as one of the causes of the students? poor achievement. The long term poor achievement of Nigeria students especially in mathematics has been linked to this truth. Though Nigeria does not have a very clear, effective and explicit national language policy on the language of instruction, it is obvious from the pieces of the policy that MT can be used as alanguage of instruction at the basic education level. Tiv Language is therefore recommended for teaching/ learning mathematics especially that the Tiv people have their traditional Mathematics before the introduction of Westen Education. more efforts should be made to translate English words, terms vocabularies and symbols in to Tiv Language so as to make the students familiar with Mathematics. Key Words: Mother Tongue, Language of instruction, Mathematics, Teaching/Learning, Tiv Language.

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