Oral Literature As A Medium Of Teaching Moral Values To Selected Schools

Oral Literature As A Medium Of Teaching Moral Values To Selected Schools

Background of Study

Oral literature means oral workshop of high merit which are products of the creative use of imagination by the artist of the spoken words inpre-literate communities. similar workshop are composed mentally by the illiterate raconteur; Stored in the memory and also spoken, recited, chanted or sung on specific occasions( Ikwubuzo, 1993). It consists of both prose, verse, narratives, runes, songs, myths, rituals and dramatizations, sayings, reports andriddles.Values on the other hand is the collection of guiding principles; what one deems to be correct and desirable in life, especially regarding particular conduct. They’re beliefs about what’s right and wrong and what’s important in life( Hornby, 2005). Ogunbameru and Rotimi( 2006) observed that “ values are each inclusive, deeply internalized particular feeling that direct conduct ”. therefore, values may not be seen, but are honored in the geste of the child. As leaders of hereafter, the youthful bones are given the introductory spiritual and artistic training to enable them take over the adult liabilities in order to maintain and sustain the societal development. The use of Igbo oral literature( Chronicle) as a tool for value inculcation to children and youths is the concern of this paper. The emphasis is on Igbo reports.

It would feel that the study of the artistic achievements that make us mortal should hold pride of place in every educational system of advanced education and exploration. Nations justifiably look to their universities for the education of their citizens and leaders, and for the product of knowledge necessary for growth, security, and substance. More frequently than not, a university’s core charge is embedded in the humanities — in the study of culture, history, language, literature, anthropology, gospel, religion, the trades and myth. The abovementioned disciplines constitute a people’s common heritage. The humanistic disciplines, and particularly myth, have a clear practical value they educate critical and logical thinking while at the same time stimulating the imagination and promoting ethical values. Leaders need these chops to lead, to identify problems, and to conceive creative results. Citizens need them to share laboriously in public life. Yet the crucial donation of the humanities and myth in particular — goes beyond artistic education and training in logical chops. Humanistic studies help base public dialogue on numerous critical issues encompassing humane values. Technical and technological results moment raise ethical issues and questions that bear public understanding and public debate. Humanistic exploration and tutoring illuminate the ethical principles that frame discussion and give exemplifications of neutrality and fairness in dialogue( ASSAF 2011,p. 25).

This paper examines oral literature as a medium of tutoring moral values to named seminaries in Oru West original government area of Imo state. It draws attention to the uproariousness of indigenous knowledge contained in oral literature and demonstrates how the ethical and moral gap in the being educational system can be filled by the moral precepts bedded in oral literature. The paper argues that oral literature has not entered the attention it deserves among other disciplines of the humanities in institutions of advanced literacy in Africa. This is because a sound educational policy in any country with myth at the centre enables scholars to understand their own society before pacing to learn about other societies. In other words, a sound grounding of the pupil in his/ her people’s culture helps him her come a useful member of the society.

It should, still, be noted that “ there are three orders of literature in Africa, videlicet oral literature in African languages, written literature in African languages and written literature in some European languages ”( Sone 2009,p. 157). Of these three, oral literature in African languages is naturally the oldest and most predominant in Africa. This is so because its generators and druggies are, generally speaking,non-literature, pastoral and agrarian. From the below observation, it follows naturally that an mindfulness of the African people can only come from the knowledge of the culture, customs and knowledge systems which are extensively set up in African oral literature. therefore, oral literature provides the proper terrain for the release of creative energy necessary for the development of a sense of artistic belonging that sustains the foundation of a common identity. It’s for this reason that Kimani( as quoted by Ganyi( 2016,p. 17)) makes the following statement

Orality has been an important system of tone- understanding, creative connections and establishing equilibrium between body, soul and terrain. Through oral( literature), communities have been suitable to pass through values, stations, knowledge and modes of practice for generations( Kimani 2010).

relating the fustiness of oral literature as myth in mortal history, Ganyi( 2016,p. 19) also quotes Bynum( 1974)

For numerous glories, the only instrument of metrical words and narrative known in any part of the world was the lingo men were born with(…) so for long periods, so for any way any knowledge could survive from one generation to another was through oral tradition. metrical speech was the world’s first great medium of communication for complex ideas and there were clearly media men of astonishing chops long before anyone on earth knew how to write.

It’s good of citation that previous to the arrival of Ruth Finnegan’s magnum number Oral Literature in Africa( 1970), it was normal practice and indeed scholarly in some circles to see oral literature as an accessory of disciplines similar as Anthropology, Folkloric Study, History, Cultural Studies, Religious Studies, and indeed Sociology. Oral literature was noway seen as literature, not to mention being studied as literature. moment, as a result of the pioneering workshop of scholars like Finnegan, Okpewho, Tala, Nketia and numerous others, oral literature in Africa is getting a robust and thriving field of study. In its process of elaboration, it has encountered prejudice and misapprehension by numerous scholars who essay to force it into othernon-literary disciplines.