ABOUT US
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Adeleke A. Fakoya, Phd
Principal Instructor |
www.ProjectEnglish.org (under the aegis of Open Arms Ltd - a registered company in Nigeria) started without much bigger ambition than to be a resource forum for 'linguistically ailing' second-language users of English in Nigeria who, for instance, could not differentiate between such confusable items as shut and close, and contemptible and contemptuous. Or those who think flat and apartment are two different kinds of 'space'. At first, the focus of the 'project' was to provide information on such forms on paper and distribute to such 'patients' in different group and classroom settings. After a small training contract with The Punch newspaper sometime in 1999, the 'project' gained some modification: it became a training outfit for language and communication needs - and focused principally on the appropriate use of English and the contextual demands of business and general official communication.
Before long, some staff of The Punch had told the staff of some banks about some new things they had learnt through 'a professional' and in no time at all, the Human Resources Departments of the banks - and, afterwards, some Oil Companies - requested that we conduct training programmes for their staff what with the deficiencies they demonstrated in memo writing, vocabulary, paragraph development, proposals and what not. Faced with such challenging assignments, we knew we needed to be above board in these matters; and so we started looking for higher authorities to 'train' us, too, so as to be better trainers. That took us to the Internet where we found that many other people had been concerned with our desire to make English less onerous for its (primarily second-language) users worldwide. As at today, (as the saying goes in Nigeria) we have 'consulted for' numerous banks, oil companies, government and public outfits and even for other consulting firms who acknowledge our ascendancy in the areas of our specialisation.
But then we needed to have a sharper focus in these matters. So we turned to look at the failure records published yearly concerning students of the Senior Secondary School by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Commission (NECO). Sadly but truthfully, these results have inspired us more than the demands from the scores of organizations who require our services.
Our findings are essentially that there are far too many teachers in the schools who should be allowed to go into other vocations or occupations - simply because even these teachers ought yet to be in school learning what they're presumably teaching. Our conclusion: if only these teachers could be taught what they're teaching! And that's what led to the birth of www.projectenglish.org.
In a few words, ProjectEnglish is a way of providing free online service to thousands of teachers and students of English as a second language in Nigeria and other parts of the world. The site does not lay any copyright claim to anything on it, given its own acknowledgement of the help it has 'received' from thousands of sites that make its knowledge-base possible. At www.projectenglish.org, we have reduced English to (i) a school subject and, (ii) a language - two vital perspectives which, even if they're regarded as the two sides of a coin, need to be kept apart for particular reasons: for example, one may be able to speak good English, but that competence does not guarantee that one would be able to write good English. What's more, the details of English required of students by examination bodies all over the world are, as it were, mostly of English as a subject.
So, at ProjectEnglish, we welcome all students, researchers, professional teachers, and general readers to a free resource-well for the promotion of a knowledge of English that underscores what the examiners ask for: the standard variety.
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