ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of teachers‟ instructional strategies on class seven pupils‟ Insha performance. Kiswahili is a compulsory subject tested at both Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (K.C.P.E.) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E.) national examinations. Insha is tested as a paper in both examinations. It accounts for 40 out of 90 (44.44%) and 40 out of 200 (20 %) marks of the overall K.C.P.E. and K.C.S.E. mark respectively. Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) reports dating back to 1985 (K.C.P.E.) and 1989 (K.C.S.E.) indicate that candidates have not been performing well in Insha. Previous research on Insha has not addressed the problem. This research sought to establish whether the teaching strategies used by primary school teachers in Insha contribute to the poor performance. The study was guided by four objectives namely: to investigate the preparations made by teachers in teaching Insha in class seven, investigate the methods and resources used by teachers in teaching Insha, assess the impact of the methods and resources used by Insha teachers on learners‟ performance and find out assessment methods used by teachers in assessing Insha. This study was anchored on the theory of educational productivity advanced by Walberg (1984), the theory views educational process in terms of its power to produce outcomes. According to Walberg (1984) there are nine factors that are required to increase affective, behavioral, and cognitive learning. He asserted that these “potent, consistent, and widely generalizable” factors fall into three groups: student aptitude, instruction, and environment. Student aptitude includes: Ability or prior achievement as measured by the usual standardized tests; development, as indexed by chronological age or stage of maturation and Motivation, or self- concept as indicated by personality tests or the student‟s willingness to persevere intensively on learning tasks. The study used the survey research design. It involved 14 public primary schools. These were the only accessible schools from the study sample of 19 public primary schools. The non-probability sampling technique was therefore employed because all the accessible schools were involved. Data was collected using a questionnaire, an observation schedule and an Insha test. Simple random sampling was used to select one school that was sampled for the pilot study. The Test-retest technique of reliability testing was used whereby the pilot questionnaires were administered twice to the respondents, with a one week interval, to allow for reliability testing. The scores were then correlated using Pearson Product- Moment Correlation formula to determine the reliability coefficient. In order to check content validity the researcher sought expert opinions where the instruments were discussed in line with the objectives. The ambiguous questions were discarded and the ones which were not in line with the objectives were also discarded. The target population was Kiswahili teachers teaching class seven and their class seven pupils in Garissa County. The questionnaire was administered to class seven Kiswahili teachers. It had both structured and unstructured questions. An Insha test was administered to class seven pupils. This was important in finding out the reality of the problem. An observation schedule was used to collect data through observation of actual Insha lessons. Collected quantitative data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics, which involved frequencies, percentages and the mean while the qualitative data was thematically analyzed. Findings of this study are expected to improve teachers‟ pedagogical aspects. This is expected to address the perennial poor performance in Insha in Garissa county and North Eastern region.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope and limitations, assumptions theoretical and conceptual framework.
Background to the Study
The Swahili language is spoken by various communities inhabiting the African Great Lakes Region including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo (Ogechi, 2002). Although only around five million people speak Swahili as their mother tongue, it is used as a lingua franca in much of the southern half of East Africa. Ogechi (2002) approximates the total number of Swahili speakers in the world at 150 million. Kiswahili is one of the official languages of the African Union. It serves as a national language or official language of four nations: Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.
Kiswahili is offered as a subject in various institutions worldwide. Mwansoko as cited in Ogechi (2002), states that by 1977, 49 institutions were teaching and conducting research in Kiswahili worldwide. Of these, 24 were in Europe, 18 in the United States of America, two in Asia and five in Africa (Ogechi, 2002). Germany had more than 10 universities offering Kiswahili by 1977. Kiswahili is offered as a Foreign Language subject in approximately 100 universities across the
USA. In Britain, the University of London and York University offer Kiswahili subject to both home and overseas students. London and Cambridge Universities have a long history of interest in Kiswahili and have for years been offering examinations at General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.) to local and overseas students at both ordinary and advanced levels. Other countries whose universities offer Kiswahili as a foreign language include Germany, South Korea, Ghana and Japan. These universities conduct annual in-country programmes of intensive study of Kiswahili in East Africa (Ogechi, 2002). In Africa, Kiswahili is offered as a subject in most East African countries. In October 2010, 27 Kenyan Kiswahili teachers left for Libya to introduce Kiswahili as a subject (Siringi, 2010).
The language is used in both electronic and print media in British Broadcasting Co-operation (BBC), Deutchewelle, Voice of America (VOA), India, Pakistan, Radio Moscow Idhaa ya Kiswahili and Beijing China. Urusi Leo, (Russia), Sauti ya Urafiki (Germany), China-Gazeti la Picha (China) are examples of international print media. In Africa Kenya Broadcasting Co-operation (KBC), Radio Tanzania Dar-es -Salaam (RTD), Radio Rwanda, Voice of Uganda, Radio South Africa (RSA), and Channel Africa broadcast in either Kiswahili or have Kiswahili programmes.
In 1990, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni emphasized the importance of a common language that could easily be spoken by all the people in the East-African
region in the exercise of integration. According to him, English, French and Portuguese, which were being used, were not good enough. He proposed Kiswahili saying that it is a language that is „spoken‟ the way it is „written.‟ This implies that there are deliberate efforts to teach and develop the use of Kiswahili language in Uganda (Ogechi, 2002).
In Kenya and Tanzania, Kiswahili is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools. It is the Medium of Instruction in primary schools in Tanzania. In the Kenya Constitution 2010, Kiswahili has been recognized as both the national and co-official language alongside English. Modern technology has also embraced Kiswahili which is now recognized by Microsoft. Ominde (1964) recommended that Kiswahili be made a compulsory subject in primary schools for its unifying national influence and as a means of Pan-African communication. According to the Kenya Institute of Education (2002), Kiswahili has the capacity to nurture and develop national unity and patriotism.
Kiswahili is taught as a second language to Kenyan learners. Even native swahili speakers, find the subject (standardized from Kiunguja-a dialect spoken in Zanzibar) different from their local dialects depending on their location. Mainly Somali L1 speakers occupy Garissa County. Given linguistic differences between Somali and Kiswahili languages there is bound to be negative transfer in SLA (Mutugu, 2001 citing Selinker). Tucker and Byan cited in Mutugu (2001) state that
/v/, /z/, /∂/, /θ/, /č/, /g/, /nd/, /mb/ are problematic to Somali L1 speakers. These sounds are problematic because they do not exist in the Somali language. A Kiswahili teacher in Garissa County will need to develop appropriate teaching strategies that will address these and other L1 challenges among his learners.
Class texts and teachers‟ guides used in primary schools do not offer any sufficient guide on Insha writing tempting teachers to throw Insha to students to keep them busy while the teacher is away or not feeling like teaching (Jupp and Milne, cited in (Omondi, 2005). As early as class four, a pupil is expected to write a discussion such as “Je, unakubaliana au unapinga wazo la kuwa na vazi moja rasmi nchini? Andika hoja zako.”(Bakhressa, 2005). This is just one of the many examples of expectations of class texts authors from ill-prepared pupils. Lack of appropriate reading materials to compliment the shallow class-texts worsens the situation. Reading is important in that the teaching of writing depends fundamentally on the learners‟ proficiency in reading (Kabaji, 2011). An effective reader knows how to use punctuation marks, words, proverbs, paragraphing and correct sentence structures. (Buhere, 2001) states that writers are ardent readers moved to imitation. He wonders how we would expect our students to write functionally when they have never seen the best models or specimen of real, good writing. One Riwaya (The Novel), one Tamthilia (The Play) and one Hadithi Fupi (The Short Stories) examined for over five years cannot be said to be enough exposure in an exam- oriented system. Buhere (2011), states that pupils lack suitable reading materials in
Kiswahili. The ones, who get them, have little inclination in reading the available material with the tenacity and enthusiasm required. Kiswahili books with too many factual mistakes (Ryanga, 2002) worsen this situation by exposing learners to unsuitable materials. There is need for Insha teachers to use strategies that encourage reading. The current study observed that Insha teachers did not advise learners on intensive and extensive reading to enhance their Insha writing abilities. The Insha teacher needs to employ strategies that will prepare the learner systematically in analyzing the topic, developing relevant ideas and organising them logically.
The Kiswahili syllabus only highlights types of Insha to be taught. This leaves teachers to use their own creativity and experience to come up with different strategies to prepare students for the same examination. There is need for the syllabus, K.I.E approved texts and their guides to adequately provide strategies to guide teachers in teaching various types of Insha.
An observation of Insha lessons in primary schools in Garissa County indicate that teachers have stuck to the product approach of Insha teaching. They focus on production of neat, grammatically correct pieces of writing. There is need to approach writing as a process that has distinct stages that enable learners to express themselves effectively.
Despite the importance of Kiswahili language universally, the performance of Kiswahili Insha in national examinations has remained below average over the years. This consequently affects the quality of the overall Kiswahili mark. The following table summarizes national Kiswahili K.C.P.E performance from year 2004 to 2007.
