Evaluation of Contextual Teaching of Kiswahili Proverbs in Secondary Schools in Kenya

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the contextual teaching of Kiswahili proverbs in secondary schools in Kenya. Despite the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (K.I.C.D) recommending in the revised syllabus that Kiswahili teachers place teaching content in real life context and environment (K.I.E. 2002), many teachers displayed inadequate knowledge on its implementation. This came to the researcher’s attention through complaints registered by many Kiswahili teachers in workshops and seminars organized by the K.I.E. to sensitize teachers on how to implement the revised K.I.E. (2002) syllabus. The research objectives were: to find out whether teachers of Kiswahili teach Kiswahili proverbs contextually, to determine whether teachers have been prepared adequately to teach contextually. The research focused on Gem Sub-county, Siaya County in Kenya. The study sample comprised 14 teachers from 14 secondary schools out of 46 secondary schools in this Sub-county at the time of research. The research was guided by Contextual Teaching and Learning Theory founded by John Dewey as expounded by Vienna (2012). Contextual Teaching and Learning is a concept of teaching and learning that helps teachers relate subject matter content to real world situations (Berns and Erickson 2001). It motivates students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning requires. This was a descriptive research. Interview, questionnaire, observation and literature review methods were used in collecting data. The data was presented in form of descriptions, tables, graphs, charts and percentages. The findings of the study revealed that though teachers used the CTL approach in teaching Kiswahili proverbs, they did not understand its principles hence did not implement it properly. Their training in the CTL approach was not exhaustive and the Kiswahili seminars and workshops organized in the field did not focus on it. Most teachers preferred the few available materials to creating their own relating these proverbs to learners’ real life situations and experiences. The study will serve as a reference point for the teacher trainers to put more input in training Kiswahili teachers to implement CTL effectively. The Ministry of Education will find the research resourceful in organizing for in service, workshops and seminars aimed at addressing the challenges experienced in the implementation of CTL thereby improving Kiswahili teachers’ performance. The study therefore recommends that: teacher trainers consider imparting fully the principles of the CTL to trainees in order to enable them to implement it as expected; the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders organize many seminars and workshops which should focus on this approach; prepare teaching and learning aids and publish more and adequate reference materials in this area, and advise KNEC to make a question on proverbs compulsory in national examinations in order to make teachers give its teaching the weight that it deserves. The findings of this study will be crucial in helping the educational stakeholders to find ways of improving the CTL approach as recommended in the K.I.E. (2002) syllabus