Alatoo Academic Studies………………………………….………………………………………………...Vol 6, No2, Year 2011 302 ENABLING EFFECTIVE EARLY ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) LITERACY TEACHING 23 Nkechi M. Christopher, PhD Institutional affiliation: Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Address: U. I. Post Office 14427, Ibadan, Nigeria nmxtopher@gmail.com Abstract Literacy skills development at early primary and beyond has been incapable of supporting educational and personal development among most Nigerian learners. A weak foundation characterised by poor skills teaching inhibits effective learning throughout schooling years, and life-long development, subsequently. Primary teachers have limited knowledge of how to teach print literacy, and lack avenues for self-development. Moreover, for long, teachers and students alike had little or no access to teaching and learning resources and print materials. Expectedly, limited exposure to print materials and literacy practice at home and school constrains pupils’ reading and writing experience and therefore literacy skills development in a second language. In view of this unsatisfactory state of affairs a feasible remedy to early ESL (English as a second language) literacy skills teaching was piloted in seven primary schools in Nigeria. This report highlights features of the synthetic phonics programme trialled; presents the procedure followed in a six-month pilot project on teaching reading, spelling and handwriting skills to primary one pupils; and discusses the outcome. The findings reveal that the reading and spelling performance of pupils taught English sounds, and sound-spelling relationship was superior to that of learners taught only the regular school curriculum. A packaged synthetic phonics method proved effective for literacy skills development in the Nigeria environment where teacher development and teaching skills are suboptimal. Keywords: Emergent literacy, ESL (English as a second language), Literacy development, Socio-cultural context, Synthetic phonics Introduction Contrary to the expectation of Nigeria’s education language policy, most children do not acquire literacy in English or a mother tongue at the end of primary six. In an era when ICT facilitates multiple literacies and critical literacy (Begoray & Francine, 2002), it is still difficult for the average Nigeria child to leave primary school able to functionally read traditional print material in any language. It seems that the more efforts made to overcome challenges to literacy education, the more intractable they become. The reason for this is not far-fetched – infrastructural provision falls far short of what is needed to achieve educational goals. Teacher and resource provision is incapable of developing the most basic form of literacy; and unlike in the pre-1980 periods, the tradition of private/independent learning has waned and the means of self-education (books in particular) are not as pervasive as they used to be. Although universal basic education was designed to ensure compulsory basic education for each child, most of those children that go through the public school system are being marginalised in access to higher education and opportunities. Reading, according to Lloyd (2003), “has the potential to transform and to assist in preparing students for participation in a democratic society.” Lacking proficiency in the four English language skills is a handicap to future educational development and life ambition fulfilment for the Nigerian child, as observed of children learning in an official language in other multilingual settings (e.g. Portante, 2002; Buthelezi, 2002). As in many other African countries (Buthelezi, 2002), the inherited colonial language dominates as the language of instruction in Nigeria. For example, despite a language policy of early mother tongue education at lower primary level, this author observed recently that primary one examination papers were written in English, 23 The author acknowledges Mr. Alan Davis’ (proprietor of THRASS) contributions by way of sponsorship of the pilot project that this paper reports, training of teachers and supervisors and part of the analysis presented in paper.