This descriptive qualitative study attempted to understand, explore and report the occasions and reasons for which a tutor or a student would use the native language in the second language classroom in a national language policy context, like Ghana, where such practice is disallowed. To use the L1 in the L2 classroom or not has been an ongoing debate in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as Second/Foreign Language (TESL/TESOL, TEFL), in that, while a group insists on a strict monolingual English-only ESL classroom, another group thinks a reasonable quantity of L1 and appropriate use of same in the ESL classroom could actually facilitate the teaching and learning of English. Data collection instruments were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Participants were 13 language tutors and 53 second-year language specialism students, all from four Colleges of Education, and selected through purposive sampling. Results revealed that L1 is used as functional strategy in the L2 classroom, and serves various reasons; empathy, classroom management, identity, lack of comprehension, nurturing bilingualism. It is recommended, therefore, that, the national language policy of Ghana which limits the language of classroom instruction to English be made lax enough to allow for some appreciable amount of the L1 to aid ‘understanding’, which is the bedrock of education.

This study sets out to investigate, examine and understand the hidden ideologies and ideological structures/devices in the 2013 State of the Nation Address of President John Dramani Mahama. The study specifically aimed to (i) ascertain the ideologies embedded in the speech and (ii) investigate linguistic expressions and devices which carry these ideological colourations in the speech under review. It uses Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework to examine the role of language in creating ideology as well as the ideological structures in the speech. These hidden ideologies are created, enacted and legitimated by the application of certain linguistic devices. The researchers deem a study of this nature important as it will expose hidden motives that Ghanaian presidents cloth in language in order to manipulate their audience through their speeches in order to win and/or sustain political power. Through thematic analysis, it was revealed that Mahama projected these ideologies in his speech: ideology of positive self-representation, ideology of human value, ideology of economic difficulty, ideology of power relations and ideology of urgency. It also revealed that Mahama projects his ideologies through the following ideological discursive structures: pronouns, biblical allusion and metaphor. The study has shown that language plays a crucial role in human existence as a means of socialisation. Language has been revealed as a means of communicating ideologies and events of the world. In the tradition of CDA, this study has confirmed that text and talk have social and cultural character and that discourse functions ideologically.

Listening skill is one of the four important language competencies. However, it has not received the needed scholarly attention, not only in classroom pedagogy and curriculum planning but also in studies and researches in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as Second Language. This study therefore attempts an investigation into the teaching and learning of listening skills in the language classroom in Ghana. It focuses on three issues in English as Second Language (ESL) listening comprehension; i) the strategies/methods for teaching listening skills, ii) the challenges for learning listening skills and iii) the ways to overcome the challenges. This descriptive qualitative study, having used two major instruments for data collection; observation and open-ended questionnaire, engaged 200 students and 7 teachers as the sample from selected Senior High Schools in the Agona West Municipality. The analysis of data revealed that indeed clarity of speaker, speed of delivery, learning environments, etc posed challenges to the teaching and learning of listening skills. It was also revealed that combining listening with other skills, predictive and summative strategies were the strategies teachers employed in teaching listening. Then, finally, the solutions to listening comprehension challenges, as revealed in the data, were indicated as including planning, overt student participation, clarity of speaker, assessment strategies, etc.