Teachers' competencies and availability of instruction materials in poetry grades in selected schools in Kampala District

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to identify the possible influencing factors of poor performance in poetry in English among advanced secondary learners. The study was prompted by a continuous reflection of poor UACE UNEB results in poetry in English paper in the previous years attained by learners completing the advanced level of secondary. Hence the need to find out which one(s) among the influencers of performance in education were responsible for creating the continued reflected poor performance in poetry in English paper. Two very important influencers of the quality of output produced in education (performance), were studied in efforts of establishing the cause of poor performance in Poetry and these are: instructional materials and teachers’ competencies in teaching Poetry. Other influencers, named extraneous variables were also found to be important in explaining the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the selected study variables in the performance in poetry in English at the advanced level of secondary. The study was conducted in Kampala district in a few selected A’ level schools. The cross sectional survey research design and organization effectiveness model theory were adopted for the study. The data was obtained using questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis tools. The study established that Instruction materials and teachers’ competencies have both direct and indirect influence on the performance of A’ level learners of poetry in English. Therefor in order to improve performance in poetry, the two should be prioritized because they influence other aspects of learning like; form of delivery, choice of material/content, attitudes and time allocated for revision etc. All which contribute to the outcomes of learning (performance). Thus the study’s recommendation that teachers who teach poetry must be competent to instruct poetry completely for all learners to enjoy, understand and excel in it, not to focus only on completing syllabus content matter. They should be competent in creativity and alternate the methods of teaching poetry, diversify materials preferably to include the recent technology which holds learners’ interests and many interact a lot with them outside class. Teachers’ continuous personal professional evaluation and development should be emphasized in order to build their potential in using the newly discovered technologies that learners are far advanced and interested in if there is to be improvement in performance in poetry.