IMPACTS OF VARIETIES OF ENGLISH ON THE WRITTEN ESSAYS OF STUDENTS IN SELECTED SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MANGU LOCAL GOVERNMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page – – – – – – – – i
Declaration Page – – – – – – – – ii
Approval Page – – – – – – – – iii
Dedication Page – – – – – – – – iv
Acknowledgement Page – – – – – – – v
Table of Contents – – – – – – – – vii
Abstract – – – – – – – – – x

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the Study – – – – – – – 1
1.2. Statement of the Problem – – – – – – 6
1.3. Purpose of the Study – – – – – – – 6
1.4. Research Questions – – – – – – – 7
1.5. Significance of the Study – – – – – – 7
1.6. Scope and Delimitation of the Study – – – – 8
1.7. Operational Definition of Terms – – – – – 8

CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.0 Introduction – – – – – – – – 10
2.1 The Nature of Varieties of English Language – – – – 10
2.2 The importance of English Language in Nigeria – – – 13
2.3 Differences Between AmE and BrE – – – – – 16
2.3.1Grammar – – – – – – – – 16
2.3.2 Punctuation – – – – – – – – 22
2.3.3 Spelling – – – – – – – – – 23
2.3.4 Pronunciation – – – – – – – – 24
2.3.5 Stress – – – – – – – – – 26
2.3.6 Vocabulary – – – – – – – – 27
2.4 The Varieties of English Used in Nigeria – – – – 32
2.5 Implications of L2 Teaching with Varieties of Englishes (AmE and BrE) 32
2.6 The Concept of Writing – – – – – – – 34
2.7 Summary of Literature Review – – – – – – 37

CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design – – – – – – – – 38
3.2 Population of the Study – – – – – – – 38
3.3 Sample of the Study – – – – – – – 38
3.3.1 Sampling Technique – – – – – – – 38
3.4 Instrument for Data Collection – – – – – – 39
3.4.1 Validity of the Instrument – – – – – – 40
3.4.2 Reliability of the Instrument – – – – – – 40
3.4.3 Description and development of instrument – – – – 40
3.5. Procedure for data collection – – – – – – 41
3.6. Method of data analysis – – – – – – – 41

CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
4.0 Introduction – – – – – – – – 42
4.1 Presentation of Results – – – – – – – 42
4.2 Discussion of Findings – – – – – – – 44

CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary of Findings – – – – – – – 46
5.2 Conclusion – – – – – – – – 46
5.3 Recommendations – – – – – – – 47
References – – – – – – – – 48
Appendixes – – – – – – – – 50
Abstract
This study was carried out in order to determine impact of varieties of English on the written essays of students in selected senior secondary schools in Mangu Local Government Area. This study employed survey research design. The population of this study consists of all SS 2 students in four (4) selected secondary schools in Mangu Local Government Area. The sample size of this research work, are 100 students from four different selected secondary schools in Mangu Local Government Area. Therefore, 25 respondents were chosen from each of the four (4) schools. The method of sampling in this work was the random sampling technique. The instrument that was used for the collection of data was the test. For the analysis of the data collected, the researcher used the simple percentage with clear tables and figures. The findings indicated that students are not aware of the differences between American and British English, learners were spelling in American English when they were asked to spell in the British English, inadequate knowledge of American and British lexical items has been discovered to be a serious threat on the students’ writing.. In the light of the findings, the following recommendations are made among others: textbooks writers should be consistent in the use of variety of English, English teachers should teach the varieties of English, there should be a workshop from time to time to create awareness for teachers on the impact of use varieties of English during instructions in the class, it is a plus, if not a must, for senior secondary school students to develop awareness of and knowledge on the differences between British and American English, teachers should be equipped enough in this respect.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.8. Background to the Study
English has now acquired the status of the world’s leading “global language” (Crystal 2003) because it is used for business, science, and politics. When we use the term English, readers may assume that we are referring to a standard of usage that everyone agrees upon. Readers may think that we must mean British Standard English or American Stan¬dard English because the English that exists in such places as Africa, Asia, the West Indies, the Philippines and Sin¬gapore is not real or standard English. Readers may also think that teachers of English as a second language (ESL) must be teaching British or American Standard English because that is what their learners want to learn. In fact, the issue is not as straightforward as we may think; there is neither an agreed-upon definition of Standard English, nor is there agreement on what students of ESL need or want to learn. This leads to the following ques¬tion: Has rapid change in the status of English as a global language left the classroom practices of many Eng¬lish language teachers lagging behind learners’ desires or even their needs?
In 2009 English was the native language of more than some 320 million speakers (www.ethnologue.com) and if you add the number of speakers with English as their second language to that list, English reaches close to half a billion speakers worldwide. Now, ten years on the number is even greater. English is undoubtedly a large and influential language and the importance of knowing and being able to master English is well known. The syllabus for the English subject for upper secondary school states that “Knowledge of English increases the individual’s opportunities to participate in different social and cultural contexts, as well as in global studies and working life” (Engelska, 2001).
However, what position should a teacher take towards the different varieties of English that one would find in the world, such as American, British English for example. What consequence will that choice have on the students? And what do students think about all this? American and British English have a big influence on Nigerian media today. Many of our daily TV shows are in American or British English. The music played on the radio is to a large extent in English even if the artists themselves are Nigerians.
Separation and commonness are two very useful keywords to describe the relationship between American and British English, which has a dual nature because of the American characteristics of continuity and divergence from its mother country, Great Britain. Fisher (2001:59) noticed that “the separation of the American nation from England after 1776 is schizophrenic, characterised on the one hand by violent rejection of English tyranny, as it was regarded by the American revolutionaries and on the other by acute nostalgia for their English culture”.
American and British cultures are fundamentally different in their histories, economies, environments, and social organization. Although spoken American and British English are generally mutually intelligible, there are enough differences to cause misunderstandings or even a complete failure of communication.
American English is used as a lingua franca or a second language by people in many parts of the world, including East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and China); the Americas (excluding the former British colonies Canada, Jamaica, and the Bahamas), and Liberia, in Africa.
British English is used in former colonies of the British empire, as in Africa (including Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, etc), the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh); Malta, Australia, New Zealand, and in Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand). It is also used in all Middle Eastern countries, except Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Although differences do not involve formal terminology, misunderstandings are possible in everyday life language. Therefore, it is important to raise the level of mutual awareness of the differences between the speakers of the two varieties.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has established factors or parameters for judging examination scripts as regards essays or compositions. These are four in all: Content, Organisation, Expression and Mechanical Accuracy. Content refers to the relevance of the candidate’s answer to the question; Organisation refers to the appropriate arrangement of material into clearly connected paragraphs; Expression is the way the candidate has used language appropriate to the subject, and Mechanical Accuracy deals with such mechanical things in written communication as punctuation and spelling. This research does not have in focus all the above-mentioned mechanisms for teaching and judging candidates as far as examinations are concerned. The research is mainly concerned with “expression” and “orthography”. Orthography falls under the above-mentioned Mechanical Accuracy. Content and Organisation appear to have universal similarities so they are not exactly in focus in this treatise.
One truism underpins our concentration on Expression and Orthography is that no two languages are ever the same. Since this research focuses on British and American Englishes, as the major varieties, it might be useful to deviate a little on why the two cognate Englishes could be described as individual languages. Hudson (2004) states that the contrast between “language‟ and “dialect‟ is, among others, a question of prestige. For him, language has a prestige which dialect does not have and in this sense, Standard English (although an imprecise notion) “is not a dialect at all, but a language.” Hudson explains that “whether some variety is called a language or a dialect depends on how much prestige one thinks it has, and for most people this is a clear-cut matter, which depends on whether it is used in formal writing.” Thus, for us, owing to the huge prestige enjoyed by British English and American English as a result of scientific and technological expansions the two have become distinct languages in many senses. According to Gramley (2001) “… English is a single language, and the very fact that this book (The Vocabulary of World English) is written in English – albeit with some idiosyncratic and/or local characteristics of the author – should itself be reminder enough.” Indeed, the unity of English is a basic truth since users of a particular variety are able to communicate with users of other varieties. However, the idiosyncratic predispositions which define the varieties and make them individually distinct ought to be recognised in spite of the unity of the language to ensure competent and credible assessment of examination papers. Our point is that British English and American English are languages because of prestige and precisely because they are languages they have their individual identities and are therefore “separable.” This aplomb is analogically buttressed by Quirk et al., (1974) who said that “The properties of dogness can be seen in both terrier and alsatian (and, we must presume, equally), yet no single variety of dog embodies all the features present in all varieties of dog.”
The systematic description of varieties of English, native and non-native, is steadily gaining momentum in contemporary sociolinguistics (Kortmann and Schneider, 2004). English has long been identified to be a pluricentric language (Clyne, 2001), and more recently linguists have been paying increasing attention to the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), as there is widespread agreement about the fact that “the vast majority of verbal exchanges in English do not involve any native speakers at all” (Jenkins, 2005). Cook (2003) points out that it is communicative language teaching, an approach based on the introduction of the concept of communicative competence by Hymes (1972), that still remains “the dominant orthodoxy in progressive language teaching” today. This also means that 21st century speakers and learners of English need to be linguistically, sociolinguistically and pragmatically equipped to be able to communicate with native and non-native speakers of English from various regional, social and cultural backgrounds (Bieswanger, 2007). ELT is broadly defined as “the field of teaching English as a second or foreign language”, is thus currently facing new challenges in a changing and increasingly globalized world.
The issue of which varieties should be learned by non-native learners of English and the question of acceptability of linguistic variation in ELT have become widely discussed topics in academic writing about ELT and are everyday issues for contemporary language teachers (McArthur 2001). The increasing importance of different Englishes – particularly native varieties other than British and American English, the New Englishes and ELF – however, appears to be still only marginally reflected in ELT curricula and teaching material.
1.9. Statement of the Problem
English is a global language and official language to some countries, Nigeria inclusive. It is of importance to note that English language has varieties. The prominent varieties and mostly used are the American and British varieties. It is not a strange thing to find students and even teachers switching from American to British English when writing. This can largely be as a result of improper knowledge of which varieties is used for formal and informal purposes.
In the past few years, there has been loud outcry of the poor performance of students in English language. This poor performance of students could be as a result of poor content organization of students in their essay writing. It is of importance to note that the Nigerian society was colonized by the British, and as a result of this, the variety of English used in Nigeria is meant to be the British or Standard English (BrE). It is quite alarming to discover that most students cannot distinguish between British and American varieties of English, and therefore mix up the two varieties in the course of their writing.
In the light of the above stated problem, the researcher has a serious interest in the effects of varieties of English on the written essays of secondary school students in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State.
1.10. Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to determine the impacts of varieties of English on the written essays of secondary school students in Mangu Local Government Area.
Other specific objectives include:
1. To find out what variety of English is taught to students in the selected Local Government Area
2. To determine which variety is easier for students and mostly used by them.
3. To determine the effect of teaching varieties of English on the written essays of students.
4. To proffer possible solutions to the identified problems.
1.11. Research Questions
In order for the researcher to have a sense of guide, the following questions have been formulated which will be answered by the end of the research:
1. What variety of English is taught to students in the selected Local Government Area?
2. Which variety is easier for students and mostly used by them?
3. How does teaching varieties of English affect students in their written essays?
4. What are the possible solutions to the identified problems?
1.12. Significance of the Study
This study is of great importance, especially now that the Nigerian society is crowded with a lot of varieties of English. Therefore, the study will be beneficial to the following education stakeholders which include government, students, teachers and curriculum planners as well.
The teacher will get to know the pitfalls posed by teaching or mixing up the varieties of English (British and American) in the classroom, and will prepare lessons to cater for these pitfalls.
The student will get to know that English language has varieties and will come to realize the English variety (Standard English) which is appropriate for the formal writing.
To the curriculum planners, they will structure teaching and learning activities to eliminate the use of two varieties of English, instead the appropriate variety will be taught to the learners.
The government on its part will provide the necessary textbooks and instructional materials which will enhance the teaching and learning of the Standard English.
1.13. Scope and Delimitation of the Study
This study covers the Impacts varieties of English on the written essays of secondary school students. The study is limited to some selected secondary schools in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State. However, despite the fact that the study is limited to the selected Local government, its findings can be generic: it can be generalized to other parts of the country as well.
1.14. Operational Definition of Terms
ELT: ELT is the teaching of English to people whose first language is not English. ELT is an abbreviation for ‘English Language Teaching’. … English Language Teaching: the teaching of English specifically to students whose native language is not English. This term is also known as EFL (English as a Foreign Language).
Varieties: If something has variety, it consists of things which are different from each other in meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples.