WORLD INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET VERSUS TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPH: THE CONTRASTIVE BEHAVIOURAL PRODUCTS OF TWO CODING SYSTEMS IN ENGLISH FOR NIGERIAN PUPILS

Abstract

The nature of spoken and written Language and the various methods used in the teaching of reading were examined (Chapter I). This led to a consideration of the difficulties inherent in the complexities of traditional english orthography and some of the solutions suggested by various writers (Chapter II), including the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) and World initial Teaching Alphabet (w.i.t.a.) both of which have been proposed by Sir James Pitman for use as transitional alphabets in order to postpone children’s confrontation with the irregularities of Traditional Orthography (Chapter III). World Initial Teaching Alphabet was introduced experimentally in 1966 for teaching young children to read English in some schools in Ibadan and Lagos areas of the Western and Lagos States of Nigeria, respectively, in order to discover the effects of using w.i.t.a., as compared with T.O., as an initial teaching medium. Experimental groups learnt to read through w.i.t.a. and then changed to T.O., while control groups read T.O. all the time (Chapter IV). By means of tests, observations, and the analysis of teachers’ reports it was possible to compare the progress and attitudes of experimental and control groups, as well as the influence of sex and intellectual ability on the pupils’ progress. The comparisons were made at four important stages, namely at the beginning of the experiment (Chapter IV), just before the experimental groups transferred to T.O.(Chapter V), about six months after the transition (Chapter VI), and about one year after transition (Chapter VII). Teachers’ opinions on the effects of using w.i.t.a. were also analysed (Chapter VIII). The results obtained indicate that the teachers ere favourably inclined towards the use of w.i.t.a. (Chapter III); that where pupils started learning to read through w.i.t.a. before they had had considerable contact with T.O., it gave them some advantages over those who used only T.O., whereas it gave no such advantages in cases where appreciable contact had been made with T.O. before w.i.t.a. was introduced; that the performances of the experimental, relative to those of the control groups, did not differ markedly after they had transferred to T.O. from their performances before the transition; that the difference between the performances of w.i.t.a.-taught and T.O.- taught pupils appeared to be greater in the rural than in the urban areas; and that w.i.t.a. had salutary effects on the English reading skills of the teachers themselves (Chapter IX).