Abstract:
Poetry is an aspect of Literature-in-English that is taught at senior secondary school to promote moral and intellectual development of students. To achieve these objectives, different strategies such as peer conferencing, Socratic dialogue have been prescribed for its teaching. However, observations have shown that these strategies are hardly well-implemented due to inadequate awareness of their procedures while those who are aware do not show sign of effective use of such strategies. Previous studies focused largely on teachers’ interventions to determine the effect of peer conferencing and Socratic dialogue strategies in enhancing learning outcomes with little emphasis on teachers’ awareness and implementation of these strategies to teach poetry. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate teachers’ awareness and implementation of peer conferencing instructional strategy (PCIS) and Socratic dialogue instructional strategy (SDIS) in Akure, Nigeria. The extent to which teaching qualification and experience influence awareness and implementation of PCIS and SDIS were also determined.
Conscientisation and Social Learning theories provided the framework, while the mixed methods design was adopted. The two local government areas (LGAs) in Akure (Akure North and Akure South) were used. Random Sampling technique was used to select 30 schools (15 per LGA). An intact class of SS2 Literature-in-English students and one teacher were purposely selected from each school. Instruments used were interview guide (r=77), Teacher Awareness PCIS (r=0.79), and Teacher Awareness SDIS (r=0.81) questionnaires; Teacher Implementation PCIS (r=0.77) and Teachers Implementation SDIS (r=0.80) rating scales. In-depth interviews were held with the 30 teachers. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s product moment correlation at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were content analysed.
Teachers’ age was 45.30 ± 2.30 SD, while 70% of them were married. Teachers were moderately aware of PCIS (r=2.68) and SDIS (r=2.59) as against the threshold of 2.50, while their implementation of PCIS (r=2.46) and SDIS (r=2.33) were low. Teaching qualification had a significant correlation with teachers’ awareness of SDIS (r=0.7) but not with PCIS. Teaching experience correlated significantly with both awareness of PCIS (r=0.49) and SDIS (r=0.41). While teaching experience correlated significantly with the implementation of both PCIS (r=0.56) and SDIS (r=0.45), their qualifications did not. The perceived challenges of implementing the strategies were space constraint, rigid time table, lack of facilities and instructional materials, non-commitment of teachers to use the strategies, students’ loafing and their poor level of proficiency in English Language.
Teacher awareness and implementation of Peer Conferencing Instructional strategy and Socratic Dialogue Instructional Strategy were moderate and poor respectively, whileteaching qualification and experience had direct relationships with these strategies in Akure, Nigeria. The level of teacher awareness and implementation of these strategies should be raised through various developmental programmes.
