The Road to Take

The English language is basically made up of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The Kenyan syllabus has undergone a lot of transformation since independence. Although we expect the syllabus to change somewhat because of the new constitution, it may not deviate much from the current one which focuses on the teaching of the four language skills. This is what is taught from primary through to secondary school. Another beautiful thing about this syllabus is that it is spiral. What this means is that a learner is introduced to language concepts at a basic level and then the same concepts are taught in the upper classes but the degree of difficulty increases somewhat. The internet is not yet a source for information for primary and secondary students in this country. However, at college level the internet has almost replaced the text book. The journey I wish to take with you is one in which the internet complements the text book as well as the teacher. In my twenty three years of teaching English in rural secondary schools, the one thing that I have come to appreciate is the poor grounding of grammar concepts that my students bring to the classroom. Over the four years that the secondary course takes little or no meaningful improvement takes place in the students’ spoken or written language. I attribute this to the fact the students think of grammar not as a set of rules to be regularly applied in ones day to day communication but rather as a school subject/course. It is in the application of what is learnt in grammar to ones daily interactions that improves the four skills of English. The hardest of these skills is writing. Students need to see the relationship between their grammar competency and their composition/writing competency. The road to take therefore is to get a thorough grounding of ones grammar and relate it to ones environment. Grammar can be very boring if it just learnt as a set of rules. Although the parts of speech are first taught in upper primary school then rigorously taught in form one, many students are unable to distinguish them in a sentence at any level in secondary school. However, if students constantly relate the parts of speech to their environment they will find their mastery of the concepts improving threefold. Therefore, this road that I will walk you through will start from an interactive point of view. I would wish for that bold step to come from students who are grappling with their grammar. Shoot that question that bothers you and I will try to deal with three questions everyday. Further, I would like students to appreciate the close link between poetry and grammar. Therefore, I will also welcome poetry questions as long as you send me the full poem and tell me exactly what aspect of the poem you have a problem with. After the August holiday, I will assess how much ground we have covered and whether it will be appropriate to move to listening skills. Suffice it to say that this is all for free. You will get my expert advice at no cost. Grammar questions are welcome from primary school pupils and secondary school students- state your class in our post. Just send me an email: wallbiz.akach35@gmail.com and let’s start interacting, shall we?