Learner’ s drawings as pedagogical tools in the acquisition of effective communication in early years education in Kenya.

Abstract

Children’s conversations are the very heart of schooling and pedagogy. Studies globally and regionally indicate a low reading and communication attainment by children, with 90% of them in 3 rd world countries not attaining the average levels required. The majority across Africa struggle to read and communicate, which leads to meager academic performance, Kenya is no exception to this trend. This scenario has been associated partly with challenges related to effective communication acquisition. Therefore, how teachers' aid learners to achieve the ability to converse is a question in this study. This study had sought to explore children’s drawing as a pedagogical tool in the acquisition of effective communication in early years' Education in Kenya with the following objectives to: explore the teachers' pedagogical competency of drawing, examine the nature of classroom environment for drawing, establish the use of drawing resources and explore the use of learners' drawings in the acquisition of effective communication in early years’ education in Kenya. The study was guided by Piaget’s cognitive development theory. The study adopted a pragmatic philosophical approach which allows for a mixed method research design. The study stratified Nandi County into six sub-counties and used Yamane formula to arrive at the sample of schools. 300 teachers, one per school was purposively sampled out and 15 teachers and 6 early years program officers were selected through convenience sampling for the interviews. Non-Proportionate purposive sampling was used to pick 400 drawings from the pupils. The research instruments used in this study were questionnaires, interview schedules, direct observational schedule, and document analysis. A mixed approach research design was used whereby quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics while qualitative data were analyzed using themes. The study found that there is a significant positive relationship between the teachers' pedagogical content knowledge on drawing and use in the acquisition of communication skills in Early years education (β1=0.206, p<0.05). There is a substantial positive relationship between the classroom environment's nature in the acquisition of effective communication (β2=0.245, p<0.05). There is a significant relationship between the use of drawing resources and the acquisition of effective communication (β3=0.180, p<0.05). There is a significant positive relationship between use of learner's drawings and the acquisition of effctive communication (β4=0.188, p<0.05). This was supported by views of the teachers and program officers who were interviewed, documents analyzed and observations made on children’s drawing and the classroom environment. The study concluded that the majority of early years education teachers are not adequately prepared with drawing competencies and further, drawing has been established to be an effective tool in early years education that enhance effective communication. Therefore, the study concludes by recommending further teacher training on pedagogical competency on use of drawing and that, drawing be adopted and used as a heuristic strategy to enhance effective communication in early years classrooms. Hence, an approval by the ministry of education curriculum developers and stakeholders is important for its adoption as a heuristic strategy for early years education learning since it is a significant tool in enhancing effective classroom communication in early years education.