Education and Pedagogy

Use of English courses reach every first-year student, yet students rarely shape how they are taught. Through focus groups with 64 students and interviews with eight lecturers, this study explores how students experience the course and what they would change. Students value the course’s practical aims but describe large classes as silencing. The article recommends small-group writing workshops and peer review as ways to restore student voice.

Teachers in Nigerian secondary schools routinely move between English and Igbo, yet official policy treats such switching as a lapse. Drawing on forty hours of recorded lessons in four Nsukka schools, this study examines when and why teachers switch codes. The analysis shows that switches into Igbo cluster around discipline, encouragement and the explanation of difficult concepts, while English marks assessment and formal instruction. Rather than undermining authority, code-switching lets teachers manage the classroom on two registers at once. The article argues for language policies that recognise this practice as a pedagogical resource.