The falling standards of spoken and written English

English language is the medium of professional and official communication in Ghana. It is the first subject to be learnt at school. It is also used throughout the learning process because it’s the official medium of communication in Teaching and learning.

Some years ago, Ghanaians were noted for speaking and writing good English. It was so because we had not allowed our mother tongues to adulterate our English language.

Among Ghanaians too, Northerners were noted for speaking and writing good English language.

Sadly to note today, the standards of both written and spoken English in Ghana, is fast dwindling. The spoken English, however, is far better than the written English. This situation must be of great worry to all of us.

Just ask some of our University and Polytechnic graduates to write just an application letter, or describe an event, and you will have the shock of your life. You will come across unacceptable grammatical errors. The commonest of the mostly unacceptably errors in our written English, include;

Spelling mistakes,

Subject-verb agreements,

punctuation, etc.

You take a page of written English and you just will not know from where to begin your corrections. It’s very sad. Many of the graduates we have today can not put together even an acceptable cover letter, as for CVs,I will not go there at all.

Several factors account for this sad situation, and the most common and greatest of them is that, the students of today, we just don’t like reading. Reading widens our scope of understanding the English language since by reading, we come across a wide range of vocabulary. We see how words are spelt and used in sentences, as we read widely.

What makes our reading habit poorer is the fact that, we are not challenged to read at all, especially at the Tertiary level. Most students at the University do not read books, they read just ten to twenty page handouts. Students are restricted to these handouts since most of the Lecturers expect just what they have put out in those handouts, as answers to their questions.

Furthermore, in most of our examinations at the tertiary level, we do not write essays, because of the large numbers. Most of the assessments are in the form of objectives, “fill-in”or “true or false”. How at all, can this challenge students to learn to write good pieces of English Language?

I have also realized that, most of us, back at the University, were simply running after grades, rather than knowledge. So if even we had to read, we must read just what will give us the grades. So for example, hardly will you find a Science student reading news papers, they consider it waste of time.

Yet still, another factor which is seriously affecting our written language is the use of pidgin English, especially in the social media. Some are so used to this “adulterated English” to an extent that, they find themselves using it, even in official communications.

As a Trained Professional Teacher, my greatest worry over this issue has to do with our Teachers also being victims of this crime. Now that our Teachers are part of it, how do we weed it out from our Education process? This is where my worry is.

While in class five, my class Teacher, Mr Moses, admonished me to develop the habit of reading, even if I do not understand what I was reading. He gave me fat books to read.

Back at the secondary school, Mr Ahmed Ali, popularly called Mr Quran, once told me that, the secrete of knowledge, is reading. He told me that, he falls sick when he is not able to read for three successive days. He told me to read anything “readerble”, that was how he put it.

I took these admonishments to read very seriously, and by the time I left the secondary school, even though a Science student I was, with the exception of Macbeth, I had read all the books on the Fiction shelves. Border Runners, The president’s son, Sweet Revenge, Who killed Nancy, Things fall apart, etc were some of the books. In fact, for African Writers Series, by a year after my secondary education, I had read almost all the books in the series. The Sandema Community Library had a large stock of the books in the series, and I used to spend the whole of my day’s time there. In fact, the Librarian, would notify me of the new arrivals in the series, even before they are registered and shelved, just because he realized I had interest in them.

I also, from the advice I received from my masters, read News papers very regularly. In fact, back at Sandema, I had a friend called Mr Abdul-Hak, he used to operate a Drugs store. He usually would buy News papers, and after reading, he would cut them into pieces to wrap the drugs. I usually would go for a paper when he is about to close, and by the next day, I would have read it from cover to cover, including the funeral announcements.

Many of my friends on this platform, were my students, IAM saying all these not to blow my own trumpet, but to encourage you to read, it’s not too late, we can polish both our spoken and written English Language by reading, ceaselessly.

We all need to make the act of reading, part of our lives, else we risk falling off the raiders of intellectuality. Even on this platform, if we need to put out credible write ups, we must read. Some times I read very long articles posted here, not because I like the line of the story, but because the English is good.

The more you read, the more you gain a mastery of the English language and the more you write.

WE MUST ALL KEEP READING.

TEACHER TAHIRU.