Teachers’ knowledge and skills in teaching the integrated English curriculum in public secondary schools in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the teachers’ knowledge and skills in teaching the integrated English curriculum in public secondary schools in Kakamega Central Area. The specific objectives were to find out: if teachers of English are adequately trained to teach the integrated English curriculum; the attitudes of the teachers of English towards the integrated English curriculum; the teachers knowledge and skills in selection and organization of content in the schemes of work and lesson plans and the teaching methods used by teachers in teaching the integrated English curriculum. The study was guided by Gross, Giacquinta and Bernstein (1971) theory of implementation of organizational innovations and utilized an exploratory research design. The study population comprised of Heads of Departments (HOD) of Language and teachers of English. Stratified sampling was used to divide the schools into district and provincial secondary schools. Simple random sampling was then used to select public secondary schools in the area. Purposive sampling was used to select Heads of Department of Languages in the selected schools. One HOD of language from every school participated. Simple random sampling was used to select two teachers from every school. A total of 24 teachers of English and 12 HODs’ participated. Questionnaires, interview schedules and document analysis schedules were used as tools of data collection. Questionnaires were administered to teachers of English and Heads of Department of Languages were interviewed. Document analysis was done where the schemes of work and lesson plans of the teachers of English were analyzed. Data from questionnaires was analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques such as percentages then presented using tables. Data from interviews was analyzed qualitatively based on the emerging themes. This study came up with the following findings: majority of the teachers have attained pre- service training in teaching English but it is not adequate enough to help them integrate English Language and Literature effectively; majority of the teachers of English have a positive attitude towards the integrated English curriculum; teachers of English do not have the required knowledge and skills in selection and organization of content in the schemes of work and lesson plans of English and finally, teachers of English preferred using teaching methods that involved the use of literature set books as compared to other methods. Therefore, this study recommended that the Ministry of Education should identify teachers who were not trained to use the integrated approach in their pre-service training and offer in-service training in teaching the integrated English curriculum. Teachers should be encouraged to continue using the integrated approach so as to help to improve the attitudes of students which were found to be poor. HODs’ should give guidelines to teachers of English concerning the selection and organization of content in the schemes of work and lessons plans. Also, teachers should use as many methods as possible to teach the integrated English curriculum as this will enhance the teaching and learning of English and also improve the learners attitudes towards the subject. It is anticipated that the study findings will assist curriculum planners to improve on the integrated English curriculum and the Ministry of Education will be able to make a decision on whether to continue implementing the integrated English curriculum or go back to teaching English Language and Literature separately.