[EDLING:1320] Why the poor show in English at Kenya School Certificate of Education

[Francis M. Hult]

Kenya Times

http://www.timesnews.co.ke/13mar06/schtimes/sch2.html

Why the poor show in English at KCSE 

By KENNEDY BUHERE 

A report in a section of the media last month indicated that only 554 students 
scored straight A in English language in the last year’s Kenya School 
Certificate of Education [KSCE]. 

It raised queries why so few students could score an A when the language of 
instruction in schools was English, meaning that students were perpetually 
exposed to the language whenever they undertook lessons be it in English, or 
other subjects. 

While the report raised legitimate and real concerns about the dismal 
performance of English, it failed to address what I consider to be the factors 
that have made it virtually impossible for students to posit impressive 
results in the subject. 

Language experts argue that mature use of a language (any language) is an 
acquired skill. We acquire this skill majorly by listening to competent 
speakers of the language; we reinforce that skill by reading books written by 
competent writers in that particular language and by imitating or modelling 
our speech and writing habits based on the two. 

If the foregoing assumption is right or valid, it follows that our students 
are being invited to sit for English language in fourth Form without having 
been exposed to excellent speakers of the English as a language; they are 
sitting for exams without having read great works of literature in English; 
nay, they are being examined at fourth Form without having had sufficient 
exercise in writing or speaking in English. 

In a Presidential Address to the Modern Language Association in the United 
States in 1980, Helen Vandler complained that students in that country came 
from secondary school having read no works of literature in foreign language 
and scarcely any work of literature in their own languages. 

Vandler’s complaint equally relate to our own students. Our system of 
education does not expose our students to literature of intellectual, 
aesthetic and moral vitamins as to ignite the students to think about the 
recurring problems and challenges that has perpetually faced man--problems and 
issues that are at the core of every communication, every discourse and every 
human speech and writing. 

We do not have a standing core of books--the novel, poetry, play, and the 
essay--that our students could be invited to acquaint themselves with before 
they ever sit for the Form Four Examination. 

The nearest we have come to this is when the Kenya Institute of Education 
prescribe certain limited number of boos for study for purposes of the 
Literature Paper which examines not more than three books. 

It is left to the particular English language teacher to choose from the wide 
array of books to give students as class readers in lower forms. 

Extremely very few English language teachers expose form one, twos and threes 
to such books as would build the personalities and world views of students. 

Indeed, a number of English language teachers are poor role models to the 
students. Most do not read; choosing to rely on the texts for abstracting 
passages for comprehension questions. And for others who read at all, they 
read thrillers and other low brow books that can not energenise his/her mind 
to help students develop critical reading skills which are crucial, in my 
view, for not only comprehending, but appreciating the issues in the 
admittedly excellent excerpts or passages the Kenya National Examination 
Council sets for comprehension and summary questions in the subject. 

Science teachers and teachers of other subjects do not help either. Most are 
grossly poor speakers of the language and do not other so long as the students 
can grasp the concepts they are teaching. 

The net result of this sloppy attitude to the English language is that many 
teachers cannot engage in any serious discourse on current issues using 
acknowledged rhetorical techniques. These are the techniques that are crucial 
in enabling one to write composition coherently and energetically. 

No wonder most compositions (Kompo in their sheng language) are very weak in 
grammar, organisation of ideas and originality. 

Another very serious issue is that many English language teachers are simply 
lazy even when it comes to the teaching of grammar and composition. 

Because they do not prepare, because they are not serious, one rushes to the 
class armed with a passage which he/she has not read. He/she asks students to 
read the passage in turns and they attempt to answer questions together. After 
the end of the lesson, the teacher leaves the classroom, satisfied that he has 
helped “build the nation!” 

I will not be saying anything new when I argue that most students leave 
secondary school without having been taught how to write a composition, the 
rhetorical strategies open to the composition writer and the different types 
of compositions or essays there are in human communication. 

All that most teachers do is extract a composition from a past paper, ask the 
students to tackle it and hand in the exercise books for marking. Many 
teachers stay with the exercise books for almost a term and when they 
eventually return them, the pick what they consider the best composition by 
one of the students. It is read before the students and after that, they are 
asked to write like so and so. 

The “so and so” student could, in his own way, have developed a strong reading 
culture from whence he/she acquired the excellent writing habits which the 
teacher is praising. The rest of the students write badly because they have 
not been exposed to good writing and because, having not read anything, they 
have nothing to write about. 

An excellent writer, it has been said, is a good reader moved to write. 
Embedded in real good works of art are certain experiences, reflections, 
pathos, ironies, wit and tragedies of life which the various authors have 
grappled with as individuals or the societies about which they wrote about. 

In short, these books communicate certain values, mores, norms and 
philosophies of life which the reader acquaints himself with--the themes or 
experiences related could make him happy, sad, angry, reflective and 
empathetic. 

Apart from seeing how words and phrases are managed or collocated to convey an 
idea or meaning, the student leans something about life as seen through the 
eyes or perspective(s) of other people. 

It is the totality or integration of these “eyes” that make the student 
complex or potent in his/her personality.Called upon to write a Kompo, (to use 
their language), the student or candidate is invited to reveal something about 
himself or herself through the composition. It is the complexity or 
originality of his/her viewpoint and the perspicuity of his/her writing that 
earns marks. 

But because many of our students have not read anything, they have virtually 
no personality to reveal about themselves on paper. 

Because they have not come across any piece of writing addressing difficult 
issues of life, they do not understand, let alone appreciate the themes of the 
three passages they are called upon to read and answer certain questions 
thereof. 

Where do we go from here? I think the onus is on KIE and the ministry of 
Education to develop what in my view, should be a list of certain outstanding 
books of art or literature which students should ideally have read by the time 
he/she sits for KSCE examinations. 

The books should by no means be exhaustive or exclusive. They should simply 
indicate the kind of literature that is ideal for students preparing 
themselves not for exams per see, but for the responsibilities of adulthood 
and citizenship. 

Indeed, the thoughts, reflections and issues that the books in question tackle 
could as well turn out to be the most relevant education to the lives of these 
students when they come of age. This is because, modern formal education, and 
the modern curriculum designed to make us marketable, do not prepare us for 
the paradoxes that confront adults or even teenagers. 

Certain African literature scholars have successfully expunged Western 
Literature from our curriculum arguing that the books, particularly the 
literary canon was a tool of imperialism and/or elitism--which values or 
philosophies are inconsistent with modern egalitarian or democratic society. 

That is an argument irrelevant to the thrust of this article. However, in 
developing the core of books, KIE and the ministry of Education, should keep 
at bay people who subscribe to this argument. This is because, there are 
certain outstanding books of literature Western civilisation produced that 
have the capacity to impart impeccable writing and speaking skills, besides 
imparting into our students certain values that I think are crucial in 
establishing and sustaining a country’s institutions. And without strong 
institutions, society has no capacity to master its social and physical 
environment. 

In her closing address to the Modern Language Association in 1980 we referred 
to earlier , Vandler observed: 

“We have it in our power, I believe, to reform ourselves, to make it our own 
first task, to give, especially to our students, that rich web of 
associations, lodged in the tales of majority and minority culture alike, by 
which they could begin to understand themselves as individuals and as social 
beings.” 

I also feel that we have it in our power to give our students the rich web of 
associations embedded in the great literatures of the world--African 
literature, oral and written, Western Literature--the legends, myths, fables 
and the written literature-- and enable our children “to begin to understand 
themselves as individuals and as social beings. 

It is in fact this individuality and social beings that any composition 
writing process, indeed any expressive art calls forth from a person. To 
expect our students to express themselves or see how others express themselves 
and the various normative rules of language is like drawing blood out of a 
stone! 

We have denied our students an opportunity to grow by not exposing the culture 
of our civilisation as embodied in intellectual literature as opposed to the 
popular or pulp literature which, because it doesn’t take any effort to 
understand, they readily access and read, alas, at the modelling of our 
teachers! 

We need to codify or list a core of books from which schools and English 
language teachers could choose from to bring to the attention of students. We 
have in the English language hundreds of books that can be chosen from. They 
range from the novel, poetry, play, essay, speeches. They could be drawn from 
fiction and non-fiction. 

We cannot talk about globalisation when we are made to hide in our own cocoon, 
courtesy of certain scholars. We cannot talk about globalisation without our 
ability to communicate because if we have nothing to communicate or transact 
in the global market, in the Information super High way, we shall become 
servile consumers of It.