Influence of Mother Tongue in the Teaching and Learning of English Language in Selected Secondary Schools in Ondo State, Nigeria

The rate of failure recorded every year in most external examination constitutes a major concern to the education sector. Every year government recruits more teachers into the system, capacity of various kinds are conducted at all time, yet the failure rate continues to increase. On this basis this study investigate influencing mother tongue on students in teaching and learning of English language in Secondary Schools in Ondo State, Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted, 100 secondary school teachers were randomly selected from secondary schools in Ondo State, Nigeria, to complete the self-designed instrument constructed for data collection in this study. The study employed frequency counts, percentages and chi-square statistical tools for the analysis of the collected data. The findings show that mother tongue interference has impact on the writing and spoken of English language among secondary school students. Another finding shows that, mother tongue hinder effective communication among students in class. It also shows that, Mother tongue influence students’ academic performance. Lastly, mother tongue hinders students from mastering the grammar of other languages. This study however concluded that, interference of Mother tongue on Secondary School Students’ of Yoruba language or other languages competence cannot be overemphasized. Keywords: Mother Tongue, Teaching and Learning, English Language, Secondary Schools