ABSTRACT
This work is seen to reveal the difficulties and challenges in learning English as a second language especially in non- native background of Igbo speaking students in Lagos state University, (LASU) Ojo.
To carry out this exercise, the researcher visited the students, recorded their first and second languages with the use of a questionnaire which has two parts (A and B). Part A consists of personal data of respondent while Part B is an investigation on the project topic that deals with the difficulties encountered by Igbo speaking students learning English as their second language at Lagos State University.
This process has a sample technique, introduced to review a population census randomly selected to complete each questionnaire. The questionnaire is arranged in columns and boxes .The descriptive research design was used to take a constructive look at syntactic features of English and Igbo languages reflecting how they are being achieved.
It is evident in the research to note similarities between English syntax and Igbo Syntax; except for interference problems; like the influence of the mother tongue prepositions are many in English language, and there is no single word adverb in Igbo language. There can’t be more than one preposition in lgbo. Linguistics should insist on utilizing mother tongue experiences for effective second language teaching and learning in Nigeria. There should equally be in place a language education policy in Nigeria whose total commitment will rest on the supervision of language development in the Nation.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUTION
English and Igbo Language belong to two different families of language. English belong to the Germanic group of the indo-European family while Igbo is of the Eastern family, Oluikpe (1996:7). This genetic difference in the two languages in contact entails a possible contrastive analysis of the syntactic structure inherit in the two languages they may have seen then as having the relationship of mother tongue (L1) and second language (L2) in terms of their users.
The most obvious evidence of the linguistic influence of English- induced structures into a Nigerian language (Bamgbose 1995:9) and vice versa, is paralleled to code-mixing.