The role of group work in the teaching of literature in Kiswahili (FASMI): A case of secondary schools in Keiyo District, Kenya

Abstract

Performance of candidates in Kiswahili in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education has been rather poor over the past years. The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of group work in the teaching of Literature in Kiswahili (fasihi) in secondary schools in Keiyo district. The specific objectives were to establish the prevalence of use of group work in secondary schools, to determine if problem-solving skills can be learnt through group discussion, to assess if group instruction can help improve retention when used in the teaching of Literature in Kiswahili and to establish the effects of the group instruction on the learning of problem-solving skills in Literature in Kiswahili. The study employed a descriptive survey research design and was guided by general systems theory of Bertalanffy (1928). The study targeted all teachers of Kiswahili and form four students in Keiyo District Secondary schools. All the 10 form four teachers of Kiswahili of the selected schools participated in this study. Simple random sampling was used to select 30% of the form four students in each of the selected schools. The study thus had a sample of 10 teachers of Kiswahili and 378 form four students, giving a total of 388 respondents. Data was collected mainly by use of questionnaires. To ascertain validity of the questionnaire the researcher consulted experts and experienced personnel in research methodology from the department of Curriculum, Instruction and Education Media. To ensure the reliability of the questionnaire, a pilot study was carried out in a neighbouring district and a Cronbach's coefficient alpha of 0.60 was established. This implied that research instruments were reliable and therefore the researcher adopted the research instruments. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques. Findings indicated that discussion work makes teaching lively, is helpful in assisting slow learners and it is liked by students, reduce fasihi examination phobia, enables students to learn how to argue out their opinions and that bright students enjoy very much. It was found that many teachers underscore the effectiveness of using group work in teaching Literature in Kiswahili as opposed to other teaching methods. The study also established that group work is very viable in retention of content learnt in fasihi. Also group work provides students with opportunity to express themselves as compared to other methods. The study recommends that teachers should allocate more time of their Kiswahili lessons to discuss in groups, the government or school management to increase the number of teachers of Kiswahili so that their workload can reduce and that all education stakeholders should work together to improve conditions to enable the use of group work in teaching and learning Literature in Kiswahili in secondary schools. It is expected that the findings of this study will be useful to teachers of Kiswahili, teacher trainers/lecturers and education quality assurance officers.