International Journal Online of Humanities
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Evaluating ELF Students’ Speaking Skill at Tertiary Level
Get PDFThis study was conducted at a Sudanese university in 2021 at the end of the semester to find out the areas caused problems of speech production. The research paper seeks to answer the question: What area/s of speaking is problematic to students? Fortysix undergraduate students in first year, who were majored in the English programme involved in the test. The total population was hundred students. Analytic rubrics were used for collecting data. Tuan (2014, p. 2) states that analytic rubric“… accesses the examinee’s specific strengths and weaknesses and identifies the particular components of speaking discourse that an examinee needs to develop”. Five explicit criteria were used to test participants; i.e.: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, cohesion and fluency. The test was conducted by two instructors who gave appropriate marks under each of five rubrics (Table 1 below). The test contents comprised some pictures and topics to speak about. Bar charts were utilized to compare and measure marks obtained by students in analytic rubrics, where each rubric was measured individually. The results revealed that students were weak in all five areas (grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, cohesion and fluency).The highest marks were gained in pronunciation, count 25%, while the lowest marks were obtained in vocabulary, 15% from the total mark allocated for this item. The results conveyed that, this group of participants was weak in all aspects that needed for speech production compared with their level (2nd year undergraduates)
Phoneme Distribution and the Sonority Nature of Consonant Clusters in Afaan Oromo
Get PDFThis paper examines an outline of two main phonological elements in the Oromo language. Firstly, it indicates the permissible sequences and types of the language’s consonant clusters given the member sound’s sonority. Secondly, it enlightens the distribution of Oromo phonemes in different word positions (initial, medial, and final). In this aspect, the study is a descriptive work and attention has been given mainly to recounting the simple distribution rather than theorizing the phonotactic processes. For the study, data was collected from five native speakers of the Western dialect and was phonemically transcribed using an IPA symbol. The speech of these participants has three hours of duration with an average speech length of 36 minutes for each participant. The study also attempts to list out the number of the language’s native and loan phonemes employed in the speech of adult Oromo users comparing the data with the earlier studies. With the study, it was observed that Oromo has Sonorant-Obstruent, Obstruent-Obstruent, Obstruent- Sonorant and Sonorant – Sonorant clusters based on the status of sonorants in its phonological system. Of the two-member clusters in clustering, sonorants are the dominant first member sounds in the language
Decolonising Subalternity through Effective History in Ishmael Reed’s Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat
Get PDFIn Section One of Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, formulating a comprehensive theory of history, contend:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight. (91)
Marx and Engels believe that in any society, history marks a conflict between two struggling opposites; noting that the one in the privileged position oppresses the one who is not. Regretfully, that type of struggle never subsides; it seems to be perpetual as it is, sometimes, ‘open’ and, other times, hidden. The same is applied to colonised and ex-colonised countries. However, theirs is not a \u27history of class struggles\u27 but of a Master-Subaltern struggle. In this struggle, resisting subalternity is achieved through legitimating the existence of the Subalterns, a process that is realised by urging the colonisers or the colonisers\u27 surrogates to recognise the subalterns\u27 Being, which necessitates admitting not only the existence of the Subalterns, but also being conscious of them as individuals1. This is brought about by occupying a powerful position that is attained through heightening the Subaltern\u27s sense of identity in the course of history. The result is, the paper argues, an active process of decolonising the Self, especially when an \u27effective history\u27 comes into existence to pave the way for the Subaltern to achieve self-realisation; as revealed in the Foucauldian thought and, also, the Hegelian and Heideggerian philosophy. The paper aims at analysing the empowerment process of the Subaltern in both Ishmael Reed\u27s Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969) and Sonallah Ibrahim\u27s Zaat (1992) by comparing and contrasting different types of Subalterns as well as colonisers and colonisers\u27 surrogates. The paper also sets out to explore the Subaltern\u27s means of self-projection to acquire a position of power based upon history so as to examine the discourse of history in both African American and Egyptian postcolonial literature.
 
Identity Crisis of Lyndall in Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm
Get PDFRetraction Notice
This retracts the article "Identity Crisis of Lyndall in Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm" in Volume 6, Issue 3, June 2020
The paper titled “Identity Crisis of Lyndall in Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm”, authored by Dr. Ramesh Prasad Adhikary, Nepal, published in International Journal Online of Humanities (IJOHMN) Volume 6, Issue 3, June 2020 on page 36-55, is found to be plagiarized.
Technical English Problems in Workplace: A Case Study of ESP - Sudanese Graduate Students
Get PDFThis paper aims at investigating technical English taught in Sudan higher education to find out whether the ESP meets the students\u27 needs when they join vocations and workplace. Twenty five students majored in different specializations participated in the study. They are graduates of different Sudanese Universities and Colleges.
To yield more insights and more description, the following are the questions of the study:
How does English for Specific Purpose (ESP) courses meet students\u27 needs in their studies at colleges?
2. Do ESP courses prepare students to the workplace?
The results indicate that the majority of the participants were not satisfied with their courses they learned at colleges when they were students because those courses did not meet their needs in workplaces
The Pragmatic Analysis of Gurage Riddle
Get PDFThis paper is based on a pragmatic analysis of Gurage riddles that lay an important role in enlightening both children and adults as well. In line with this, it aimed to investigate how Gurage people discuss pragmatic discourses and introduce them into society over riddles. The data were collected through interviews from the local people and documents. The document -‘Yegurage Wemaka’ from which fourteen riddles were collected for analysis was the primary data gathering tool for the study. A purposive sampling technique was employed to choose the informants and the document which clearly contains Gurage riddles. The collected riddles were clustered according to their theme and grammatically founded meaning, and they are transcribed into alphabetic script since they were in Ethiopic scripts. Then, the pragmatic roles of the collected data were analyzed qualitatively from the perspectives of Relevance theory hence, the study focused on the interpretive aspects of riddles. The finding showed that pragmatically Gurage riddles play a great role to promote the culture of ‘Enset’ as the main source of food and its production, to introduce the materials that are used in their day to day life and way of house building (folk materials), to promote Gurage people’s transportation system and infrastructures, to show as the coffee ceremony is the main social coexistence, to promote the culture of Gurage people agriculture, death, and destruction. Finally, it also found out that context and cultural knowledge play a major in interpreting and understanding Gurage riddles.  
Lessons from Themes in Professor Johnbull Nigerian Television Drama Season – 4 Episode 9 (Street School) Towards Curtailing Child Abuse in African Societies
Get PDFTelevision is a medium through which society is well informed about social reform, social re-engineering and social orientation because of the tenacious relevance of its audio-visual influence on the viewers. What people think about nearly every issue be it politics, religion, government, fashion, culture, is almost exclusively influenced by television. Thus, this study examines lessons on re-orientation of the African Society towards curtailing Child Abuse from themes in Professor Johnbull Television Drama, Season 4-Episode nine (Street School). The study identifies various themes of child abuse in the television drama episode using qualitative research approach of textual content analysis through Video preview and review of themes in Prof. Johnbull Television Drama. The study applied the social cognitive theory as well as framing theory. Data were gathered using a researcher –designed instrument named “Video Content Analysis Checklist on Social Orientation and Themes and Framings (VCACSOTF)”. Findings from the study revealed that vulnerable children suffer maltreatment such as: Sexual abuse, forced child labour in form of street trading/hawking and child trafficking which is a major setback to the realization of child right act on education in Africa. It recommends that similar Television series and programmes should be produced, identified and sponsored regularly on African Television networks such that social orientation against all forms of child abuse could be spread through various broadcast media just as it is being propagated in Professor Johnbull TV drama episode titled ‘Street School’. Further, government in Africa should assist in giving scholarships to indigent and vulnerable street children and that those who participate in child abuse be prosecuted
Factors Militating Against the Effective Teaching and Learning of Krio at the Junior Secondary School Level:: A Case Study of Three Schools in the Western Area of Freetown, Sierra Leone
Get PDFThis study was aimed at investigating factors militating against the effective teaching and learning of Krio at the Junior Secondary School (JSS) Level in a sample of JSS pupils in selected schools in the Western Area of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Questionnaires were administered to both teachers of Krio and pupils offering the subject at the targeted level. These, alongside observation and focus group discussions, were used to determine the level of training and experience of the teachers; facilities which support the teaching and learning of Krio; attitudes of teachers, pupils and other stakeholders towards the teaching and learning of Krio; mode and frequency of assessment; provision of institutional support; and, the success rate of pupils at the Basic Educational Certificate Exams (BECE) in the selected schools.
Three schools were targeted. In each of these schools, questionnaires were administered to 50 pupils, giving a total of 150 respondents.
A total of eleven teachers were sampled. The study revealed that:
The teachers of Krio in the selected schools were and trained and qualified. However, none of them studied krio as a major and only about one third read it as a minor.
Teaching and learning materials are inadequate, and time allocated to the teaching of krio is insufficient.
Attitude is a major factor which militates against the teaching and learning of krio in the selected schools.
Written assignments, tests and exams are the main assessment tools.
Institutional support (in-service trainings/workshops/seminars) plays a great role in building teachers’ capacity to teach the subject as all the teachers sampled did not study krio as a major subject.
BECE results (krio -2010 and 2011) indicate that only a small percentage of the pupils at JSSIII opted for krio
 
Examining the Concept of the \u27˜Other\u27 According to Edward W. Said
Get PDFAfter the World War II, the world remarks many changes in every aspect including culture, society, literature and so on. Writers around the world wrote about the effect of colonizer/colonized relationship. Edward Said is one of the pillars who deals with such discourse. Said believes that the legacy of the colonizer still exists in terms of civil wars, corruption and labor exploitation. In other word, Said means that the West creates a wrong image about the Orient and considers it as the “Other” in contrast to the ideal West. Said was the one who deconstructs the western’s thinking about the East. So his books: Orientalism (1978), The Question of Palestine (1979) and Covering Islam (1981) are appropriate to examine the idea of the ‘Other’ and to show how Said decipher the western wrong image about the East. Thus, this paper will emphasis on the concept of the Other according to Said
Shahid Nadeem’s Play Dara and the Distortion of the History
Get PDFThe present research paper explores the text of the play Dara written by Shahid Nadeem from the power-knowledge nexus perspective. The researcher finds that the play depicts that history represented by the ruling class is fabricated, which presents historical heroes as villains and villains as heroes. The researcher analyzes Shahid Nadeem’s play Dara to see how the historical character of Aurangzeb Alamgir is represented in the play. It is a commonplace to look at the emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir as a devoted Muslim who indulges his time to serve Islam. However, the researcher finds that the play questions this representation of Aurangzeb Alamgir in the history books and redefines him as a fanatic and extremist who use religion to take revenge on his brother and who shook the very spirit of Islam. The researcher uses Michael Foucault\u27s concept of history, power, and knowledge. History is not linear, history is not what is told through textbooks and media; history is buried and there is a need to dig the buried truth. The findings of this research show that Shahid Nadeem presents two ideologies by his play, the Sufi image of Islam and the fundamentalist image of Islam. He brings the forgotten hero on the stage of the theatre. Nadeem questions and exposed the nexus of power and knowledg