This paper examines language teaching and learning theories in a bid to consider evolving and appropriate approaches and methods for efficient teaching and learning English as a second language in Nigeria. While traditional approaches do provide a solid foundation for effective language teaching, they do not always address students' situational and current needs. Hence, the study reveals that strategies and methods are evolving especially, in this hi-tech age, to meet such additional needs. Since no one theory or method is the best, the study recommends a principled eclectic approach for the effective and functional teaching and learning of English in Nigeria. It also suggests processes that could enhance teaching and motivate learning in the ESL classroom.
English, in the course of its progressive evolution and global spread, has had contacts with different languages (Hogg & Denison, 2006) which have led to the emergence of native and non-native varieties spoken in different countries of the world. This, in part, has resulted in variable pronunciations of English lexical items, such as anti- pronounced as /ænti/ or /æntaɪ/ at the segmental level and adult as /'ædʌlt/ or /ə'dʌlt/ at the suprasegmental level of stress (Hogg & Denison, 2006). In addition to this, phonological free variation in English has been motivated by phonetic processes, phonological changes and sociolinguistic factors, among others (Shitara, 1993; Mompean, 2010).
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