Remarks on teaching of the Hausa language in Nigerian secondary schools

The present paper is intended to be a diort presentation of the results of a survey conducted in two secondary schools near Zaria in 1985. The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out the difficulties and problems in Hausa language development which is to some extent controlled by an official language policy. Since only two schools were visited and merely 66 respondents were tested, the results presented here first of all show the situation in those schools. On the other hand, this type of research seems to be prototypical. That is why it might be useful to present results of even random and incomplete research. As it seems that the conclusions drawn from the collected material could reflect more general problems of both learning and teaching of Hausa in Nigerian schools. The first school (Demonstration Secondary School within the campus of ABU, Zaria) was characterized by great ethnic heterogenity: the Hausas were in a minority there. Such a diversity in ethnic origin of the pupils was particularly interesting for our research, as the Hausa language course is being also taught in schools beyond the Hausa speaking area. The second school (Government Day Secondary School, Samaru) also had an ethnically varied composition but the Hausa predominated over the other groups. The ethnic heterogenity is regarded as typical for the situation in the schools of northern Nigeria.