Teaching ESL through SMS: Prospects and Problems in Nigeria Idegbekwe, Destiny

There is a growing call for English as a second language teachers to explore different learning environments and teaching options to spice up the traditional ‘boring’ English language classes. The onus has been on language teachers to discover these innovative platforms and implement same in their classes. It is against this background that the present study presents the prospects and problems of using the SMS on mobile phones for teaching the English language in Nigeria knowing fully well that at least 15.5 million Nigerians of different ages own at least one mobile phone. The study reveals that most English language teachers do not recognise the cheap, exciting and handy nature of the SMS learning environment. The study also discovers that amongst all the network providers in the country, only MTN provides an SMS based ESL class that is mainly focused on grammar tips. The study examines some problems associated with the SMS learning environment; chief amongst them being the restricted text typing environment of SMS and the inability to take pictures for illustrations. However, the study recommends that despite the short comings, the SMS platform still provides an efficient and cheap learning environment.