CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In one sense, we are being educated all the time, to the extent that everything that happens to us may bring about some changes in the way we feel, think, act and obviously the way we speak. We learn from the things we hear, from the circumstances in which we live, the people we meet, ideas in books or papers. In fact everything that surrounds us and of which we experience is educating us and our children all the time.
For the process of education to function effectively, the school curriculum is taken into consideration. Therefore, curriculum is the term used to indicate a group of subjects or field of study arranged in a particular sequence. According to Puckett (1979) Curriculum is the selection, organization and administration of a body of subject matter designed to lead the pupil on the same definite life objective.
In spite of the fact that so many aspects of man’s knowledge compete today for inclusion as subjects in the school curriculum, at least one modern language continues to maintain the right to a place in the secondary school curriculum. All those who believe that the study of a modern language other than one’s own has an important part to play in the development of the adolescent, a part which perhaps today is even more essential than in the past, are content that this should be so. It has been observed that in theory and practice whenever circumstances allows the advantages inherent in such a study are beneficial to children in secondary schools.
Language according to Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language: Is the body of wards and systems of use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area or the same cultural tradition. Language is human speech either spoken or written. Whenever there is a human society, there is language. Most forms of human activity depend on the co-operation of two or more persons. A common language enable human beings to work together in an infinite variety or ways.