A Kericho based Kenya Highlands University don of Applied Linguistics who also delves in History and Development of English, Dr Tom Oneko Ndiewo believes that teachers should relate the teaching of English to everyday life.
Talking to Education News in an exclusive interview, the don said, the teaching of Shakespeare’s plays and poems like Romeo and Juliet ought to be practical and relate to modern daily life.
Ndiewo adds that it isn’t impossible to integrate many skills while teaching the noble language that isn’t only spoken worldwide but is a must for each and every airplane pilot to master and communicate.
Oneko, the alumnus of University of Sheffield in UK says that writing incorporates other skills like Reading, Semantics (word meaning), Phonology (sound patterns) and of Course Syntax (word order).
‘’Teaching of English should be practical-oriented, and learners ought to be made to use English as a medium of communication while in school,” said the lecturer as he praised his Siaya, Yimbo Cadimo neighborhood school teachers of Wambasa Primary School for teaching learners to speak English in and out of school.
In this respect to further their goals, the teachers should organise debates and discussion sessions and ensure learners use the English language.
Decrying a situation whereby learners speak in local dialects while in school, the lecturer thinks this doesn’t broaden the learner’s English usage scope. He admitted that as linguists say the usage of the first language has a role in the acquisition of a second language.
Shakespeare plays
Revisiting the teaching of the Shakespeare’s romantic plays like Romeo and Juliet without a shed of tears, Dr Oneko says the tragic story’s salient issues ought to be considered and highlighted while bringing alive a text that many tutors may dread to handle.
Though admitting more confidence of teaching literature at high school, the don acknowledges that he has interacted with it at university level.
“At high school level we look at themes, styles, characterisation, application among others. But at university one looks at the above and also into the historical factors and movements. For example, during the French Revolution some writers like Charles Dickens of a Tale of Two Cities were influenced by the revolution. Similarly, renaissance too birthed an upsurge in writing while other movements caused folks to walk towards nationalism,’’ reiterates the don.
Dramatising
“We as teachers of the plays should present the learners by relating to their present-day life in order to arouse their interest further by dramatising it besides watching the movie, ‘’ he said.
He cautioned teachers against adapting and swallowing the whole old bait hook and sinker of teaching: the traditional methodology style of reading the book scene by scene and page by page aloud in class.
“This inhibits and limits the learners’ literary appreciation of great plays,’’ he warns.
And dismissing as untenable the misleading but common contention that the Shakespearean English – early modern English taught from 1590s used in the Shakespearean text is incomprehensive puts off the learner.
“Readers and viewers of the play don’t have an option but concentrate and lay emphasis on context and not the form of language used.”
And not impressed by the not up to scratch standards in performance of the English language in schools, Dr Oneko calls for real time workshops to spice the language.
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“Such real time workshops ought to end up equipping the teachers of English with appropriate teaching skills so as to deliver.”
Oneko notes that as much as teachers of English are trying to deliver, it’s regrettable the way English is being corrupted by vernaculars and sheng.
Noting that the marriage of English and Literature has bred heated debate for long in schools, the lecturer says teachers complain that it is difficult, tedious and painstaking to handle two subjects in this marriage of convenience.
“What the teachers say is that the syllabus is too whale-wide comprising language, oral literature, poetry, short stories, novels and plays,’’ he concludes.
By Amoto Dennis
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