A holistic curriculum or education seeks to develop all three domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor and affective. While the cognitive domain focuses on the mental and psychological fortitude of learners, the psychomotor focuses on the use and development of muscular or motor skills and the affective domain deals with the feelings, emotions and attitudes of students. Interestingly, not all these domains are sufficiently written or documented as guidelines or curricula for classroom practice. It is for such reasons that the ‘hidden’ curriculum becomes needful, as it not only complements the official curriculum but plays a significant role in shaping the values of learners. This qualitative study engages 52 language students in a college of education in Ghana to reveal their views on their experiences with the ‘hidden’ curriculum. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were the data collection instruments. The inductive content analysis technique is used to analyse the collected data. The outcome of the study reveals that gender and sexuality, religion, politics, hard work and confidence are values ‘taught’ through the hidden curriculum. The findings of the study create awareness, especially for teachers that, beyond ‘what’ they teach in the classroom, ‘how’ they teach also unconsciously transmits lessons. This means that teachers should be mindful of how they dress, walk, talk and behave in the classroom since all these virtues contribute to the overall teaching and learning process. Keywords: Curriculum, cognitive skills, psychomotor skills, affective skills, classroom practice;
The purpose of the study was to examine the interactional linguistic resources in concession speeches of Selected Political Leaders in Ghana and the United States of America. The past three decades have witnessed an increasing scholarly interest in political discourse. Despite this, concession speeches have received limited scholarly attention. This study, therefore, comparatively analyzed the concession speeches delivered by John Dramani Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo-Addo of Ghana and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore of the United States of America. Speech Act and Metadiscourse Interactionist Theories were used to examine the interpersonal linguistic resources found in the speeches. The speeches, were analyzed qualitatively. The study concluded that speakers of CSs in the two different cultural contexts use similar statements, as has already been discussed earlier in this study. For instance, the four losing candidates used almost the same interpersonal linguistic resources (hedges, boosters, self-mention, attitude markers, and engagement markers) to establish a bond between them and their interlocutors and supporters. It is recommended that, concession speeches (CSs) to be studied from other theoretical perspectives, this will allow for a detailed analysis of a wider range of linguistic resources such as noun phrases, verb phrases, and the use of adjuncts, beyond the SAs in CSs in order not to treat them as mere rhetoric in politics.
This study aims to investigate the motivation with which all the 18 final year English-major students of a College of Education in the Western North Region of Ghana made the ‘choice’ to major in the English language. This qualitative study employed a semi-structured one-on-one interview and focus group discussions as the data collection instruments. The data collected were subjected to a thematic analysis. The outcome of the study reveals that the learners admit that motivation plays a crucial role in their choice to major in the English language. Seven thematic areas were identified as the motivation for the choice. These are; self-esteem and fulfillment, communicative functionality, global competitiveness, technology, home and family factors, academic relevance, and the teacher factor. It is revealed that the stakeholders of education, such as teachers, curriculum planners and designers, developers of teaching and learning materials, principals, and school managers, should be aware of the motivation of the students for ‘choosing’ to major in a particular course [such as English] to design programs, curriculum, teaching and learning activities and materials that would best sustain and enhance the interest of the learner in the program.
The average postgraduate student in Ghana has about 20 years exposure in English language, having been taught and instructed in English from primary to tertiary level. It is, therefore, not far-fetched to expect the postgraduate student to commit minimal to no errors in their L2 writings. The seeming consequential minimal scholarly attention on errors in postgraduate writings regardless of the many studies on students’ errors is therefore not surprising. This study is an attempt to identify, categorise and describe the errors in postgraduate dissertations in Ghana and highlight their implications for language teaching. This exploratory qualitative study carries out a content analysis of 20 randomly selected MA, MPhil and PhD dissertations published between 2020 and 2021. The data are analysed using the theory of Error Analysis. After critically assessing the dissertations, seven (7) categories of concord errors were identified and recorded. These are; subject-verb concord errors, inverted subject concord errors, concord errors associated with ‘has’ and ‘have’, determiner-noun errors, concord errors on numbers, noun-pronoun antecedent errors and compound subject concord errors. This implies that postgraduate students are prone to errors, hence, the need to introduce or intensify the teaching of English at the postgraduate level.
This study sought to investigate the use of insults in Asafo companies at Asebu Amantsendo of Abura Asebu Kwamankese District in the Central Region of Ghana. The study aimed at finding out the various instances where insults are not considered as face threatening acts (FTAs) and identifying the various reasons which permit members to use insults in Asafo activities. The theoretical base for the study was Brown and Levinson’s (1978) Politeness Theory. Data was sampled from fifty participants from Asebu traditional area through interviews and observations. The study revealed that verbal forms of insults manifest through songs and greetings while the nonverbal forms manifest through flags, posts and surrogate. The study also showed occasions where insults are treated as non-face threatening acts. These occasions include specific occasions (such as funerals, enstoolment of chiefs, festivals etc), and during insult competition games. Also, the study revealed that entertainment, correction and trademark were some of the reasons for which members engaged in insults. The study contributes to the politeness theory by proving that among the Akan Asafo groups, insults were used as cohesive tools for strengthening togetherness..
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