STUDENTS' ATTITUDE AND PROFICIENCY IN YORUBA LANGUAGE IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY OF A PRIVATELY OWNED SCHOOL IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

This study discusses the Yor•b‡ language attitude and proficiency of a group of Secondary School students in Nigeria. The aim is to highlight the influence of sociolinguistic, socio-psychological, instructive-cognitive factors and socio- educational policies on the Yoruba language attitude. It goes beyond this to investigate the Yoruba language proficiency as compared to French language, employing DornyeiÕs (1994) tripartite motivational components as framework for the research. This case study revealed that the home, language background, school and educational policies might have a strong influence on the studentsÕ language attitude and that the students have negative attitude towards the Yoruba language subject. The finding underlies the motive for the studentsÕ use of the Yoruba language as being more integrative than instrumental and reveals that the studentsÕ attitude might have some degree of influence on their proficiency in the Yoruba language. The results obtained from analysis, encourages further research on language attitudes in Nigeria. It also highlights the recommendation of the concept of the CLIL (Coyle, 2005), in teaching and learning the Yoruba language. The study hopes to contribute to language attitude study literature, in Nigeria, encouraging more language attitude researches, with the hope of reviewing policies and restructuring the curriculu