A STUDY OF TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES FOR COPING WITH CHALLENGES OF TEACHING INTEGRATED ENGLISH IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MOMBASA COUNTY,KENYA

Abstract

In Kenya’s education system English is a core subject as well as the language of instruction. It is through English that content for other subjects is taught and examined, except for Kiswahili and foreign languages. English is also one of the country’s official languages. Since the inception of the 8-4-4 system of education in Kenya, the policy is that English Language and Literature in English are taught as Integrated English in secondary schools. Various studies on Integrated English (IE) have been carried out and the general conclusion is that the IE course has posed challenges to teachers. The cited challenges include: teachers’ training background, lack of knowledge of Integrated English course by most teachers, inadequate resources, inadequate teachinglearning time and difficult content among others. Evaluation reports by the Kenya Institute of Education (now Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development [KICD]) have confirmed the same. According to research findings, integration is not a priority at the teacher training level. This implies that the teachers are left to use their own devices for integration in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to find out the coping strategies that teachers in Mombasa County have adopted with regard to the challenges of IE. Specifically, the study sought to find out the following: strategies teachers employ in handling IE regardless of the inadequate teaching/learning time; the strategies teachers employ in handling IE in the context of limited teaching/learning resources; and also to find out the effort teachers make to improve their skills of teaching IE considering their training background (which, did not factor in integration). The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The accessible population was teachers of IE in public secondary schools in Mombasa County, from which a sample of 74 IE teachers was purposefully selected. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected using a self administered teachers’ questionnaire. Quantitative data was processed with the aid of Ms excel 2007 while qualitative data was subjected to content analysis from which relevant information was extracted. Research findings indicate that the most employed strategies in coping with inadequate time was extra teaching in the early mornings, evenings, weekends and school holidays. Others were use of questions to cover topics, issuing hand outs and notes. Attending seminars, workshops and consultations with colleagues were preferred in sealing the gap in their training. To manage scarce resources most teachers encouraged sharing of available resources amongst learners, using past exam papers, printing and photocopying of materials, to mention a few. In view of the findings, the researcher recommends: continuous teacher professional development programmes in addition to seminars and workshops, resources be availed to schools more efficiently and that the time allotted for English in secondary schools be revised with a view of increasing it