ORAL ENGLISH: THE CHALLENGE FOR NIGERIAN LEARNERS GANIU BAMGBOSE B.Ed English (LASU), M.A English (Ibadan) PhD in view (Ibadan) INTRODUCTION English is the most geographically dispersed language in the world. By 1990, it was already used as either mother tongue, second language or foreign language by about 1.5 billion of about 4 billion world population. The place of English in Nigeria cannot be overemphasised. It is the official language, language of mediation in the face of linguistic plurality, language of governance, education, commerce, journalism and so on. It is a language of social importance. It has also been described as the window through which we see the global world. It is important however to mention that Nigerian English is one of the very many varieties of English. It is an offshoot of the British English and it still holds allegiance to it especially in the area of standard pronunciation. Oral…