Teaching And Learning Of English And Its Effect On Secondary School Students’ Performance In National Examinations In Laikipia County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Poor performance in English language among students in Kenya has been alarming over the recent past. This has been argued to be the root-cause of the continued decline in performance on other subjects that are learnt and taught in English. One of the major steps that have been taken to enhance the performance in English was the integration of English language and English literature into one subject. However, despite such efforts, the students’ performance in English and other subjects especially those taught in English has been continuously declining over the years and most recently in the last three academic years. Moreover, there has been scarce evidence on the teaching and learning in relation to the academic performance among the students especially in the public schools. It is against this backdrop that the study sought to establish the reasons behind poor performance in integrated English curriculum at KCSE level in public secondary schools in Laikipia County, Kenya. Specific objectives were formulated to inform the study: to establish the influence of availability of learning and teaching materials, teachers’ training, teacher-student relationship as well as the moderating role of school management on the performance of integrated English curriculum in public secondary schools in Laikipia County, Kenya. The study was informed by Chomsky’s Input Theory. The research design for the study was descriptive and the target population was the public secondary schools within Laikipia County, Kenya. Specifically, the research targeted all the principals, teachers, and students in the schools who totaled to 5,161 respondents. Purposive sampling was utilized to sample principals and teachers, while simple random sampling was utilized to sample the students giving a total sample of 298 respondents. Questionnaires and Interview schedules were used as research instruments. The collected data was analyzed by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) where quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in form of percentages, means and standard deviation, while qualitative data on the other hand was analyzed using content analysis and presented in prose form. The study established that availability of teaching and learning resources, teachers training and teacher-student relationship positively influenced the teaching and learning of the IEC and students’ academic performance. The study also established that the school management had a significant moderating role between effective teaching and learning of the IEC and the students’ academic performance at KCSE level. The study concluded that timely and adequate allocation of teaching and learning resources enhances students’ performance as it is the case to teacher student relationship and teachers training. The study recommended that the government through the relevant stakeholders should ensure adequate resource allocation, proper time for teachers training and encourage student-teacher relationship to enhance performance in the IEC.