Abstract:
Life-staging of set-books is employed by language teachers as one of the teaching techniques. Not all teachers employ life-staging in their lessons since there are some challenges on its usage. The purpose of this study was to establish the challenges of using life-stage teaching strategy of set books on teaching English language in public secondary schools in Wareng sub- county Uasin Gishu County. The study was guided by the following objectives; To establish perception of English language teachers towards life- staging technique on English language teaching, to establish perception of students towards life-staging on English language teaching, to assess mastery of knowledge and skills of teachers of English on use of life- staging as a teaching methodology and the extent to which life- staging as a pedagogy is used in teaching set –books. The study was based on the theory of social learning advanced by Lev Vygotsky (1978) which argues that for learning to take place there must be a social influence. He views language as learner‟s first tool of social interaction. A descriptive survey design was adopted. Research was both qualitative and quantitative; interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data. Research instruments were tested for validity and reliability. Content and construct validity were catered for. Reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained and questionnaires considered reliable for data collection. The study targeted 1280 form 3 and 4 students, 106 teachers and 53 H.O.Ds languages department. A sample size of 433 respondents comprising of 384 students, 32 teachers of English language and 16 H.O.Ds language department was drawn from 16 public secondary schools to participate in the study through quarter, purposive and stratified random sampling techniques. Cited work was acknowledged to avoid plagiarism. In this study, descriptive statistics was used to analyze data where the percentages and frequency distribution tables was used to give summary of the findings. The study found out that 83.4% of the teachers had a positive attitude towards use of life staging technique, 74.5% of the students had a positive attitude towards this technique, 90% of the teachers less frequently attended workshops on use of life staging technique, and 80% of the teachers reported that their schools did not have life staging for all classes. Similarly, most schools had inadequate set books for life staging and at the same time, the time allocated for life staging was inadequate to cover all the contents. All cited work was acknowledged to avoid plagiarism. It was recommended that teachers need to use learner-centered approaches during life staging since the strategy improve on learning outcomes. In addition, teachers need in-service training on use of life staging techniques for teaching set books at the same time, there is need for provision of adequate set books, facilities and allocation of adequate time for life staging. The findings of this study will help education stakeholders and policy makers to come up with better teaching techniques that will suit English as a second language and improve English language performance in secondary schools.
