An Analysis of Sociolinguistic Functional Elements in the English Language Course Books: Implications for English Language Teaching/Learning in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of exposing secondary school students to sociolinguistic functional elements, which reflect the social functions they need to perform with English language. It highlights the fact that Nigerian secondary school students lack communicative abilities in both spoken and written English, because they are not taught natural language use in the classroom. It went further to analyze the sociolinguistic functional elements that occurred in three widely used English language course books in Nigeria and found out that these functional elements were not adequately reflected in the course books. Even the few that were reflected were not given in-depth treatment. The researcher comes to the conclusion that, there is the need to reflect these sociolinguist functional elements in English language course books, so that teachers can teach them to their students. In this way students will be able to communicate in diverse communicative situations of daily living.