Journal of Foreign Languages, Cultures & Civilizations

Appropriate Multicultural Language Teaching-Learning Materials for Sustainable Development: An Analysis of Longman’s “Nigeria Primary English”
Stephen Billy Olajide PhD

Abstract
An individual is not properly educated if his/her education removes him/her from his/her native culture. He/she becomes a social misfit, someone unable to participate effectively in the development of his/her society. In order to avoid such a waste, governments and relevant experts, especially applied linguists and materials developers, subject the books used in schools to intense criteria before adopting them. One of such criteria is how much the books meet the diverse cultural and environmental needs of the people. However available literature does not suggest that all the materials often implemented in schools have multicultural relevance, particularly in a pluralistic ESL context like Nigeria. Thus, this paper set out to discuss the need to use appropriate materials in the teaching-learning of English in an emergent multicultural setting. An empirical basis was attempted for the paper by obtaining data from Longman’s “Nigeria Primary English”, a series widely used in Nigeria: the researcher used a checklist to obtain data from the series and subject them to frequency count after which the bar charts were developed, based on the formulated research questions in order to determine the relevance of the series in a country seeking rapid development through balanced Education. It was found that the series involved appreciable use of multicultural items and issues, although not many of them have intercontinental implication. This means that children that are nationals of non-African countries may not be able to benefit fully if restricted to the texts books under study. Based on the findings from the study, it was recommended that authors of basal materials, textbook designers, government, teachers, learners, and parents should work together to produce textbooks with greater multicultural relevance, which would ensure an education that is more international.

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