CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION1.1 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. Lieberman (1984) argues that human language is built on a biological based that is present in other primates, and that both humans and animals have innate neural mechanisms which are matched to their respective sound producing mechanisms. Yet most linguists will readily agree that only human’s have language proper and that the possession of language put humans at considerable advantage compared with other species.English is one of the major languages out of about 5000 estimated language spoken in the World. About 200 years ago, English was simply the language of less than 15 million peoples. Today, however, English is used by more than 300 million people and second only to Chinese as regards the number of people using a particular language. English is one of the most influential and fast growing languages spoken across the globe. One fifth of the earth’s land surface use English either as native tongue or official language. Of the entire world’s languages, English is the most widely studied language; especially in areas where it is not native. Today, English is used in several countries in the American continent including the United States of America and Canada, New Zealand, Republic of South Africa, Australia and Canada, New Zealand, Republic of countries in the Wes African subcontinent. Though English was actually the language of colonization in these countries, like India colonized territories.

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