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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 58 – 63

Annual International Scientific Conference Early Childhood Care and Education, ECCE
2016, 12-14 May 2016, Moscow, Russia

Impact of Mother Tongue on Children’s Learning Abilities in

Early Childhood Classroom

Anna V. Awopetu*
College of Education, P.M.B.250, Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract
The study investigated the impact of a mother tongue on the learning abilities of pre-school children in one of the states in
Nigeria, the nation of over 200 ethnic groups and more than 400 native languages. A quasi-experimental design was
adopted. The results showed a significant difference in the post-test scores of the experimental and control groups. The study
concluded that using a mother tongue in early childhood classroom was effective in fostering children’s learning abilities.
©©2016
2016TheTheAuthors. Published
Authors. by Elsevier
Published Ltd. This
by Elsevier Ltd.is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016.
Keywords: Early childhood classroom; learning abilities; mother tongue; Nigeria.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +234-803-857-13-78

E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ECCE 2016.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.10.131
 Anna V. Awopetu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 58 – 63 59

1. Introduction
Today, educators in countries across the globe face the same pressure to start exposing children to
academic skills at a progressively younger age. This pressure is largely caused by the concerns about
children not being ready for school as well as concerns about children falling behind in their later learning
outcomes [1]. Educators who advocate such an approach to early childhood learning, strongly believe that
the primary mission of preschool should be to support early academic learning and, therefore, the main
concern of pre-school teachers is about the quality of learning outcomes in pupils. According to Osters et
al. [2], learning outcomes describe what students are expected to demonstrate in terms of knowledge,
skills and values at a given age upon completion of the whole programme or some of its parts. That is,
after a learning episode, the learner should have acquired new skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes. These three
areas were identified by Bloom [3] as three domains of educational activities:
Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge). They involve knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. This
includes the recall or recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns, and concepts that help to develop
intellectual abilities and skills.
Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude). This domain includes the manner in which we deal
with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.
Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills). ), which include physical movement, coordination, and use of
gross and fine motor-skills.
This taxonomy of learning behaviors can be thought of as learning abilities or as outcomes of learning. The
learning process in a pre-school classroom is very unique because the teacher must be communicating with
preschool children in developmentally appropriate ways. Thanks to this approach each child is encouraged to
work at his or her level of comfort and pace. Also, it provides the environment that creates curious and active
learners consistently engaged in activities and learning experiences in which they can feel successful. Knowing
how to teach in developmentally appropriate ways means that a teacher should understand why it is important in
early learning and what those ways are. One of the appropriate ways of teaching and learning in early childhood
is the correctly selected medium of instruction and communication.
In the last few decades, research has demonstrated that the quantity and quality of the language of
instruction has some influence on the learning abilities of pre-school children. Researchers hold different
opinions whether the medium of instruction and communication in a preschool classroom should be
mostly in the language of the immediate environment or in the official language of the country especially
in case of multilingual nations [4].
Nigeria is a good example of a multilingual nation with its accompanying problems of language choice.
As a West African nation with over 200 ethnic groups and more than 400 native languages, Nigeria is
experiencing what is called linguistic plurality [5]. There are individuals who are bilingual or multilingual
either in indigenous languages (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) or indigenous languages and the English
language which is the official language of the country.
Linguistic plurality is reflected in many spheres of the life of Nigerian people. It influences Nigeria’s
educational system as well. The outcome of this is that more than one language is used both in the
classroom and in the course of a child’s education especially in the pre- and lower primary schools. As
stated in the National Policy on Education [6] the medium of instruction during the pre-primary school
stage shall be the mother tongue or the language of the immediate environment. At the primary school
level, the medium of instruction shall be the language of the immediate environment for the first three
years while English shall be taught as a school subject.
Mother tongue is the first language that a person learned. It is generally accepted that in teaching and
learning processes, the child’s mother tongue is of utmost importance. For one thing, it categorizes a large
part of the child’s environment, that is, it has names for most of the objects, actions, ideas, attributes and
so on that are so important to him [7]. This no doubt will go a long way to foster proper and adequate
communication between teachers and pupils, and further promote learning as the child feels more
comfortable to express himself in a language he/she understands and can identify with.
As many school practitioners in different parts of the world advocate the use of the mother tongue as a
medium of communication and instructions in early years of learning, there are several studies pointing
out that it is still unclear whether schooling in children’s native language is an effective approach to
improving their learning abilities [8].
60 Anna V. Awopetu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 58 – 63

At this juncture, it becomes very important to look at mother tongue as a medium of instruction and
communication from the perspective of its effectiveness in fostering learning abilities in Nigerian early
childhood settings.

2. Objectives of the study

The objectives of this study are to:

1. investigate the effectiveness of the mother tongue as a language of instruction on learning abilities of
pre-school age children;
2. examine the difference in the impact of the mother tongue as a language of instruction on the
learning abilities of male and female pre-school children.

3. Research hypotheses
1. There is no significant difference in the learning abilities of children who were exposed to the
instruction in their mother tongue and those who were not exposed to the instruction in their mother tongue.
2. There is no significant difference in learning abilities between male and female children after being
exposed to instruction in their mother tongue.

4. Methodology
The study adopted an experimental research design (a pre-test –post-test –control design). The
population consisted of all preschool children in the Akure South Local Government Area, (LGA), Ondo
State. Two purposively selected public primary schools in the LGA were used. One school was made the
experimental group while the other school was made the control group. The sample consisted of 80 pupils
in pre-school sections from the two schools selected. The schools were selected on the basis that they have
a high population of pre-school pupils.
In both schools, after due permission from the Heads of the schools, the researcher with the help of
trained research assistants used a self-designed “Pre-school Learning Abilities Check List” to all the
participants as a pre-test. Some of the participants scored below 40% and eventually were not considered as
subjects of experiments. From the participants that scored 40% and above, a simple random technique was
used to select 40 participants each into the experimental and control groups. The 40 participants in each of
the groups consisted of 20 male and 20 female pupils. Their ages ranged between 4 and 6 years.
The instrument for this study was constructed by the researcher. It was made up of 40 items representing
cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learning. The items were grouped in four categories. The
items in the first three groups were checking three major learning domains independently through carefully
selected criteria used for pre-school aged children. The fourth group was made to check the pupils’ fluency in
the language of the immediate environment and quality of teacher’ (caregiver) – pupil’s verbal communication.
The content validity was carried out by specialists in Early Childhood, Educational Psychology and
Tests & Measurements who made further suggestions on the appropriateness of the items and their
modifications were also adopted.

5. Procedure
The experiment lasted for a whole academic term (12 weeks). Class teachers of both classes were instructed
in details about the dominant language of instruction required from each group according to the aim assigned to
each group (experimental or control). The experimental phase commenced after due permission from the
Heads of the two schools and also, when the consent from the parents of the selected pupils was
obtained. The training for the experimental and control groups commenced after all the participants had
been pre-tested on the dependent variable. The experimental group was exposed to learning and teaching
where the main language of instruction was their mother tongue (the Yoruba language which is the language
of the immediate environment). The control group was exposed largely to the English language spoken by
the class teacher. At the end of the academic term both groups were subjected to the post-test.

6. Results
 Anna V. Awopetu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 58 – 63 61

Research Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference in the learning abilities of the children exposed
to the instructions in their mother tongue and the children not exposed to the instructions in their mother tongue.
In order to test this hypothesis, the participants’ scores in the pre-test and post-test were collated and
analyzed using the t-test to establish the difference in learning abilities before and after exposing the
experimental group to the experimental intervention. The results are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Comparison of the experimental and control group for the effectiveness of instruction in their mother tongue

Data Collected

Treatment Pre-Test Post-Test

Groups
N SD t p N SD t p
X X
Experimental 40 46.35 5.12 40 69.65 9.90
Group >0.0 <0.05
5
Control 40 45.78 4.60 40 54.70 5.89
Group 0.5 8.26
3

P>0.05
From Table l, in the pre-test, the mean ( X ) for experimental group was 46.35 while the mean (
X ) for the control group was 45.78. The standard deviations for the two groups were 5.12 and
4.60 respectively. The calculated t-value was 0.53. In the post-test, the mean ( X ) for experimental
group was 69.65 while the mean ( X ) for the control group was 54.70. The standard deviations
for the experimental and control groups were 9.90 and 5.89 respectively. The calculated t-value was
8.26. Comparison using t-test showed that while there was no significant difference in pupils’
scores between the experimental and control groups in the pre-training test scores, ( X ) = 46.35, SD = 5.12
& ( X ) = 45.78, SD = 4.60; t (78) = 0.53, p > 0.05 (2-tailed), there was a significant difference in the
post training test scores ( X ) = 69.65, SD=9.90 & ( X ) = 54.70, SD = 5.89; t (78) = 8.26, p< 0.05 (2-
tailed). Based on this result, it could be deduced that teaching and learning in the language of the
immediate environment is effective in improving pre-school age children’s learning abilities.

Research Hypothesis 2: There is no significant difference in learning abilities between male and female
pre-school children after being exposed to instruction in their mother tongue.
To test this hypothesis, the experimental group pre- and post- tests scores were sorted into male and
female groups. The scores were collated and analysed using the t-test to establish the difference in the
performance of male and female participants before and after exposing them to the experimental
treatment. The result is presented in Table 2.

Table 2: t-test showing the learning abilities of male and female participants in the experimental group after treatment

Data Collected
Pre-Test Scores Post-Test Scores
Sex
N SD t N SD t p
X X
Male 20 46.8 4.30 20 69.45 10.66
0.55 0.48 >0.05
Female 20 45.9 5.88 20 70.95 9.19

P>0.05
From Table 2, the number of males and females in the experimental group was 20 each. In the pre-test
period, the mean ( X ) for males was 46.80, while the mean for females was 45.90 and standard deviations for
62 Anna V. Awopetu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 233 (2016) 58 – 63

males and females was 4.30 and 5.88 respectively. The calculated t-value was 0.55. In the post-test period, the
mean ( X ) for male pupils was 69.45, while the mean for female pupils was 70.95 and standard deviations for
males and females was 10.66 and 9.19 respectively. The calculated t-value was 0.48. A comparison using t-
test showed that there was no significant difference in male and female pupils’ pre-training scores, t (38)
= 0.55, p > 0.05 (2-tailed) and in the post-training scores, t (38) = 0.48, p > 0.05 (2-tailed). Further analysis
using paired samples t-test indicated that both male and female pupils in the experimental group showed a
significant gain in their learning abilities after exposing them to treatment ( X = 46.80, SD = 4.30 at pre-
test and X = 69.45, SD= 10.66 at post-test, t (19) = -10.75, p < 0.05 and ( X = 45.90, SD = 5.88 at pre-
test and X = 70.95, SD = 9.19 at post-test, t(19) = 0.48 respectively). This shows that there is no
significant difference in the learning abilities of male and female pupils after they were exposed to treatment.

7. Discussion
The major finding of this research is that the students in the experimental group, where the medium
of communication and instructions was mostly a mother tongue, performed better than their counterparts
who communicated mostly in English. The effect of the mother tongue on the quality of learning abilities
could be attributed to the fact that the pupils didn’t need to do any mental translation of all concepts
which were presented in the Yoruba language and not in English in order to gain sufficient meaning of
the concepts presented. Moreover, the use of a mother tongue reinforced pupils’ motivation and made
them feel more comfortable and confident.
Another finding of this research is that there was no significant difference in the learning abilities of
boys and girls in the experimental group. The analysis of the t-test samples indicated that both male and
female participants in the experimental group showed a significant gain in their learning outcomes after
being taught in their mother tongue.

8. Conclusion and Recommendations

This experimental study has discovered that a mother tongue as a medium of instruction in early
childhood classroom is very effective in improving pupils’ learning abilities. The result of the research
confirmed that there was a direct relationship between the language of instruction used by the teacher
and pupils’ learning abilities.
In line with the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made.
1. The Nigerian Government should address the implementation of the National Policy on
Education in the part of language of instruction in early childhood settings more seriously.
2. Schools should be made to understand their role as agents in promoting of multicultural Nigerian
traditions.
3. Seminars and workshops for teachers must be organized to educate them on the importance
and effectiveness of the language of the immediate environment in the early years of learning.
4. Schools should organize forums for parents to educate them on the importance of the language
of the immediate environment in a child’s life and on how to encourage children to speak their native
language at home.

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