Most students tended to make hasty generalizations from what they read. The book A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt had very many interesting stories from the perspective of the then young and uneducated Toyin Falola and his upbringing, but most who read it tended to think that his story was true for everyone else, e.g. people not remembering their date of birth. This happened last semester as well. Maybe we should bring Chimamanda back.- Americans wrote the shortened form of the English word for mother as “Mom” instead of “Mum” as I have been used to. I didn’t know this before. I’ve always written it as Mum, until someone from class gently corrected me after I wrote it on the blackboard. Then I gently corrected her too, and voiced my reluctance to ever adapt to American English. They found it amusing.
- One of my students said on Monday after submitting an assignment to write a summary of the life of Wole Soyinka that his mother had met the Nigerian Nobel Laureatte once before, and found him to be brilliant. “Cool,” I said.
- Many students used Yoruban whenever they used Yoruba as an adjective in an English sentence, rather than the usual Yoruba, e.g Yoruban boy, Yoruban culture, instead of Yoruba culture. Yoruba boy etc. I noticed this in the scripts of my Fall semester students last year as well. Do British English people make this generalization as well?
1
Myne Whitman at http://www.mynewhitman.com
Funny but after reading Ikhide’s article on African Writer, I was discussing the generalization western readers make from reading one or two books of African writers and how that could be a burden.
Interesting tidbits, I also still write mum, lol…
Posted at January 27, 2010 on 12:18pm.
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Kola Tubosun at http://www.ktravula.com
Coming across these instances of hasty generalizations this semester again as I did last year, I’m convinced of two things that need to happen to correct all long and deeply held stereotypes and misunderstandings for now and for the future:
1. More Nigerians professors should move to the United States to teach.
2. More Nigerian authors should write with this fact in mind that someone else other than Nigerians will read their works and will come to conclusions whether or not they intend it to be so.
Of course we know which of these options is the easier to put into practise.
There is also a third option, of course. More people should apply for the Fulbright programme.
Posted at January 27, 2010 on 5:20pm.
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Azazel at http://eche-crates.blogspot.com
lol @ yoruban..
Yeah took me awhile to adapt to american english
Rumour – rumor
Posted at January 27, 2010 on 7:42pm.
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nneoma at http://pyoowata.blogspot.com
“…his mother had met the Nigerian Nobel Laureate once before, and found him to be brilliant…”
…rolls eyes…
Posted at January 27, 2010 on 8:45pm.
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Olaoluwatomi at http://www.olaoluwatomi.blogspot.com
Rolling my eyes like Nneoma, just yesterday my professor made the following statement after a Nigerian introduced herself and mentioned she was from Nigeria. ” I have had Nigerians in my class before and I found them to be extremely clever,’
Nigerians seem to have the capacity to surprise people!
Posted at January 28, 2010 on 6:17pm.
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Toyin at http://lamikayty.com
Good work! Good point! More Nigerians should go out and teach or more Americans should come here and learn…!
Posted at February 5, 2010 on 6:44am.
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ifeoluwa at http://YourWebsite
Kola, I really don’t know the age range of your students but those who are quite young might easily make such mistakes. The way young children see their teachers as being the best, so what any other person tells them later must be the wrong thing. It’s left to you to disabuse their minds of these stereotypes, you are the new teacher!
Posted at February 6, 2010 on 2:45am.