Selected school-based factors affecting teaching of Kiswahili activities in public pre-schools in Kasipul division, Homabay County

Abstract

Globally language is very important since it is a means of communication that leads to international development and cohesion. Kiswahili language activity is taught in the pre-school curriculum in Kenya and a national language in the Republic of Kenya. Kiswahili has been faced with challenges in pre-schools emanating not only from teachers academic and professional preparation but also from attitude. The present study focused on selected school based factors affecting the teaching of Kiswahili language activities in pre-schools within Kasipul Division in Rachuonyo South Sub-County. The objectives of the study were: to examine the influence of Kiswahili language policy as in the sessional paper no 1 of 2005 on the teaching of Kiswahili, to investigate the attitude of pre-school teachers towards teaching Kiswahili language activities, to establish the challenges facing teachers in the teaching of Kiswahili language activities and to establish strategies for effective teaching of Kiswahili language activities. The study adopted Descriptive Survey Design which informed by curriculum implementation theory by Gross. The study used questionnaire and interview schedules with targeted a population of 408 teachers, 306 ECDE teachers in Public Pre- Schools and 102 head teachers and the sampled population was 169. Saturated sampling was used in sampling 102 ECDE lead teachers for questionnaire. Stratified random sampling was used in sampling schools as they are zoned. Simple random sampling was used in selection of 33 pre-schools in their respective zones. The 33 head teachers were the informants. The study used interview schedules for both the head teachers and 33 ECDE teachers. The validity of the research instruments were determined by the content experts and the reliability by Pearson Correlation Coefficient and a coefficient of 0.7 was the threshold. Descriptive statistics was used in analyzing quantitative data while qualitative data analysis involved interviews which were analyzed by using thematic analysis. The study found out that there are language factors influencing learning of Kiswahili activities, the attitude of pre-school teachers was negative, several challenges face teaching of Kiswahili activities and the strategies used are not effective and thus the study recommends the following; There is need for the schools to increase learning resources; libraries, text books and Kiswahili instructional materials and child centered approaches should be used often in teaching the learners. Kiswahili should be taught using Kiswahili language and not a mixture with English or mother tongues and the head-teachers should supervise the teaching of Kiswahili activities. The supervision should be improved and self- evaluation after lesson should be encourages for better performance. There is need to train and retrain teachers to help them acquire professional know how on making professional records and motivate teachers through proper remunerations. In addition, the supervisors should increase the number of Kiswahili workshops and also networking with other Kiswahili teachers.