Learners' Attitude towards Mother Tongue Instruction in Lower schools

The success of a mother tongue instruction policy depends on people’s attitudes towards the first language and English L2. And to understand how attitudes towards a language develop it is necessary to consider the social and political history of a nation since such historical forces play a significant role (Bamgbose 1991; Robinson 1996). Thus the colonial and the post-colonial language and educational policies obviously provide a solid basis of the explanation of attitudes towards African languages and English L2 (Ngugi wa Thiongo 1986; Bamgbose 1991; Roy- Campbell 1996; Adegbija 1994; Robinson 1996). Attitudes can be created through functions that people perceive particular languages as performing. In the African context Robinson (1996) is of the opinion that official and local languages are regarded as opposed to each other rather than as complementary as evidenced by the fact that one of the two languages may be regarded as a more suitable language for certain domains and the characteristic functions are seen in dichotomous terms.