What do you all think is the problem with graduates having problems in construction of good sentences? I have gone through so many of Nigerian graduates searching for job and what you discover is the use of their english is so poor you wonder whether they graduated writting their exams using their dialects.
Most of us post our "resumes" on this site but we don't take into cognisance that employers of labour too come to this site to look at our performances but unfortunately our use of English has really been putting them off from giving us an offer. What do you all think is the problem and what is the solution to this problem?

The soln is only being more careful while typing,for example,you typed 'eployers' instead of employers.

Yeah at least you know that is a typographical error which can be averted by by going through your work after you are through with your typing.
Well that is one of the solution but i still believe there are other reasons.
Then ASALA "SOLN" can't be taking for "solution" but well always lead by example when next you are making corrections.

you spelt "deficiency and writing" wrong in your heading
Maybe the solution is to always use spell check - that catches the typos and the non-typos.

Landmark:

writting

This should be writing.  Note: single "t"

Landmark:

Most of us post our resume's on this site but we don't take into cognisance that employers of labour too comes to this site to look at our performances

The use of the apostrophe in "resume's" is wrong.  The word should be "resumes".  Also, the word employers is plural, therefore the verb that should follow is come and not comes.

We have to be careful as suggested by Ashala.  Another solution is by watching the TV programmes - Mind your Grammar by Frank Shuaib and Diction Avenue on one of our local stations, regularly!

We can as well revise our English textbooks.  

cant believe graduates replied thinking like this

what is wrong with us. we call ourselves intellectuals and we still behave as if we dont have what it takes to be called graduates.when landmark was talking he emphasized sentence construction and not typos. instead of giving it to the guy and reasoning along, y`all are fast to criticize him. what he says is absolutely true. if someone`s english is good,u`ld know by reading the write up and checkin out the way th grammar was constructed.not his typos. pls lets grow up.

SCONDY,
WORD

guys,pls lets sit up and get our acts together,lets improve on our grammar and criticise positively

Thank you Scondy, you really get the gist. And i wish to make others see that i was not trying to incriminate anybody but i thought this is a site we use in education ourselves, and if we see things happening in our environment we should bring it here and let's ruminate over it and give solution to the problems instead of criticizing ourselves.
I will really appreciate it if we all can learn rather than criticize.

Hey guys, Lets try be objective at issuing such criticisms, I understand the frustration with which the responses are meted. The truth is, postings like this are derogatory to the average Nigerian Graduate, and it pisses me to hear HR guys saying this all the time.

Lets face it, without being defensive, there are some positions that dont require u meeting with clients, highly tech. positions, all need is just to be expressive, and not impecabbly fluent.

However, I will advise those of us that appear to be plagued by this 'expression problem' to be humble and pick up some books to sharpen out diction, because no employer will be comfortable with having u on his pay roll without confidence on ur 'power of the gab'

Al da best

Hello guys,
U guys should not bother looking for jobs anymore. Just take to comedy. Introduce some flavour into comedy by branding urs "comedy in writing" or "by writing". U guys funny sha, instead of considering ur joblessness, u guys are busy insulting urself. Have u ever seen employees screening employees? Think and lets show some element of seriousness. If they like let them speak jagons, employers know what they want and on the other hand, na our papa language? Abeg leave story jare,

scondy:

what is wrong with us. we call ourselves intellectuals and we still behave as if we don't have what it takes to be called graduates.when landmark was talking he emphasized sentence construction and not typos. instead of giving it to the guy and reasoning along, y`all are fast to criticize him. what he says is absolutely true. if someone`s english is good,u`ld know by reading the write up and checkin out the way th grammar was constructed.not his typos. please lets grow up.

You mean you should worry about sentence construction and not typos. No, you should worry about the general presentation of your english. Nobody is going to overlook your typos in the professional world.

@ omogenikky,
i dont mean typos aint important but i dont think u followed the whole gist well. we`re talkin about postings on nairaland not on the general scale. every logical human being knows when u r browsing and typing, a lot of factors cld make ur write-up ve little errors , u cld even shorten some words urself just to save time. landmark was trying to say we shd be mindful of the way we construct our grammar.

for those of u dat feel afterall english no be our papa language, whether u like it or not, it`s our lingua franca. so u better pull ur asses together and improve ur diction.

Why are we attacking ourselves when all we should be doing is to educate ourselves. This topic was not raised for us to prove points on whether you are better off. But we all knew this to be our problem but why are we all running away from it. " If you run away from your battle today you will still meet it later in the future but then your level of preparation will determine how you handle the situation.

Yes English is not our father's language, but remember first impression matters a lot. You may be a brilliant fellow but if you meet with an opportunity and you did badly in communicating, then no one will want to listen to you again. There are some interviews that are done through the phone and the ability to carry the interviewer along and give a good account of yourself will determine your performance at the end of the day. At times it is not what you know that gets you the job but your expression.
Please let try and update and train ourselves rather than feeling being insulted. Right now in at my office the Senior manager got a teacher for all the workers so sharpen up their spoken English.
So you can see the importance of spoken English when looking for a good job.

This is a really cool thread(to me) 'cos the topic is a relevant one.
Just the other day I was telling a friend that my spoken english is getting worse. Now,its not like I don't speak well,I do. But I just feel I can do better....improve my vocabulary(not necessarily elaborate words) and diction. At the end of the day,its up to an individual to desire improvements. I also wanna improve ma written english,so I don't have to always spell-check what I type. Cos there would be times when that won't be available at the moment you need it.


That said,I've got a quick question. Do you think those that speak their mother tongue very well have problems speaking good english??
I watched inside out with agatha and the topic was the extinction of our indigenous languages. And then someone said there is so much emphasis on english that's why kids can't speak vernacular these days. That parents feel that if they teach their kids their languages they won't be able to speak proper english.

The truth is, language can be forgotten. Today, you cannot remember all the idioms you learnt in your secondary school days especially if you don't use them often. And remember that from University level studies in Nigeria, English is no longer thought comprehensively. That said, English is not our first language and a most times we learnt to speak and sometimes write wrong grammar picked up from the streets in Nigeria. You can see cases like that called the Nigerian grammar on NL.

I have been living in Europe for sometime now and even though i have had my studies in English during these periods, i can't help my deteriorating level of English. It gets worse by the day because people here have their first language and just speak English to fulfill all righteousness. Only those from the U.K. can be spared. And talking about U.K., i have seen many of their people speaking and writing even worse English, but i can't explain why it is getting so common.

I think a perfect English is not easy to come by, but don't miss on the most basic and important rules of the language in order to be safe.

sparkle2k3: This is a really cool thread(to me) 'cos the topic is a relevant one.
Just the other day I was telling a friend that my spoken english is getting worse. Now,its not like I don't speak well,I do. But I just feel I can do better....improve my vocabulary(not necessarily elaborate words) and diction. At the end of the day,its up to an individual to desire improvements. I also wanna improve ma written english,so I don't have to always spell-check what I type. Cos there would be times when that won't be available at the moment you need it.


That said,I've got a quick question. Do you think those that speak their mother tongue very well have problems speaking good english??
I watched inside out with agatha and the topic was the extinction of our indigenous languages. And then someone said there is so much emphasis on english that's why kids can't speak vernacular these days. That parents feel that if they teach their kids their languages they won't be able to speak proper english.

In my view, that's a gargantuan lie. Good communication in mother tongue does not depreciate good communication in the English language provided, of course, the individual can separate the two. Some of our finest speakers in naija understand and speak mother tongue very impressively. Donald Duke, Malam Shekarau, Fashola, Jimi Agbaje, Chimamanda, Obahiagbon and many others come to mind.

yemmy_ma: The truth is, language can be forgotten. Today, you cannot remember all the idioms you learnt in your secondary school days especially if you don't use them often. And remember that from University level studies in Nigeria, English is no longer thought comprehensively. That said, English is not our first language and a most times we learnt to speak and sometimes write wrong grammar picked up from the streets in Nigeria. You can see cases like that called the Nigerian grammar on NL.

I have been living in Europe for sometime now and even though i have had my studies in English during these periods, i can't help my deteriorating level of English. It gets worse by the day because people here have their first language and just speak English to fulfill all righteousness. Only those from the U.K. can be spared. And talking about U.K., i have seen many of their people speaking and writing even worse English, but i can't explain why it is getting so common.

I think a perfect English is not easy to come by, but don't miss on the most basic and important rules of the language in order to be safe.

I have been with the so called native speakers. There is nothing like a perfect English language as far as we ordinary humans are concerned. It is only a matter of time for the so called perfect speaker to make an imperfect construction of a sentence. We should all do our best to attain soundness in the English language; unfortunately we can never be perfect, no matter how hard we try.

I for one am good at spotting my spoken and written mistakes as well as those of others, and I have come to know that people put themselves in undue stress whenever they try to be too conscious of the way they construct English language sentences. It is good to sound right, but I have decided to never crucify myself whenever I make my usual mistakes in spoken or written English language.

Landmark: What do you all think is the problem with graduates having problems in construction of good sentences? I have gone through so many of Nigerian graduates searching for job and what you discover is the use of their english is so poor you wonder whether they graduated writting their exams using their dialects.
Most of us post our "resumes" on this site but we don't take into cognisance that employers of labour too come to this site to look at our performances but unfortunately our use of English has really been putting them off from giving us an offer. What do you all think is the problem and what is the solution to this problem?

Actually the problem would be less, when u learn about punctuation. It was hard as hell, trying to understand the sh*t you wrote.

LOL at all the "pots" calling "kettles" black! The very least you can do when correcting someone else’s mistake is to make damn sure that you're not committing the same egregious offense!

LOL @ Landmark’s senior manager hiring an English teacher for the workers. Sounds like the type of story someone would make up. I would feel seriously insulted if I worked in your company.

With regards to the original post, graduates are having problems expressing themselves because (1) they lack practice, (2) they had sub-standard teachers, (3) they don’t know grammar or punctuation rules, (4) bad educational foundation, and (5) English is hard.

The easiest way out for them at this stage with written English is to learn the rules. Being fluent in conversational English and speaking grammatically correct English are almost mutually exclusive. You can do one without the other.

Foreigners who studied the rules of English language can learn to speak grammatically correct English but tend to choose their words instead of the words just flowing like diarrhea! Asians are notorious for this.

The only way your conversational English won’t sound forced or “ugly” is through constant practicing.

With language in general, it is either “you use it or lose it!”

Now, who wan teach me correct pidgin?