dc.description.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. |
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