Evaluating Recommended Literature Texts for Senior Basic Education in Nigeria

Abstract

The beauty and usefulness of a literary piece lie basically on the author’s diction. The expression, ‘literary art’ stems from the fact that literary artists are able to create interesting works of art by proper manipulation of language(s) that among other things entertain and educate their reading audience. For young minds, literature is not only didactic; it also boosts their language acquisition. In recognition of the crucial roles played by literature, Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board recommended an appreciable number of textbooks for the study of literature in English. These books run from 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013 academic sessions. The thrust of this study is to ascertain the grammatical level of the language of some of these texts, particularly the genres of prose and drama. Error analyses of three texts namely: Decree of the gods, Wishful Bliss and That’s My Girl randomly selected from basic 7-9 were carried out. Concord incongruity, omission/superfluous use of articles and misuse/omission of pronouns were specifically sought for. A simple survey design was adopted for the study and the errors were collated, analyzed and classified based on their types-syntactic, morphological, and concord errors. The study reveals that the texts are replete with concord errors, misuse of articles, omission and improper application of prepositions in structures. The implication of the findings in the teaching and learning of English is discussed and suggestions for improvement made.

Key words: Literary art(ist), Language acquisition, Grammatical level, Error analysis, Concord incongruity, Articles and Pronouns