Abstract

The study investigated the impact of mother tongues on pupils' academic performance in mathematics among pupils in Lagos and Oyo States of Nigeria taken some selected public primary schools in both states as a case study. Eighty (80) pupils were chosen for the study. Twenty (20) pupils were selected from Igbo language speaking background, twenty (20) pupils were selected from Yoruba speaking background, twenty (20) pupils were selected from Hausa speaking background and another twenty (20) pupils were selected regardless of their ethnic group who are taught with English language. A lesson note was developed to maintain uniformity in the teaching of the pupil. Mathematics Achievement Test was administered after teaching and scores were collated for analysis. T-test and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used in the analysis of the data collected. The findings reveals that there is significant difference between the performances of pupils in control group and the experimental group I; there is significant difference between the performances of pupils in control group and the experimental group II; there is significant difference between the performances of pupils in control group and the experimental group III; and there is relationship between the performance pupils in experimental group I, II and III. Recommendations were put forward that the government should encourage code-mixing in teaching during Mathematics lessons for better understanding of concepts taught.