Date of Award

12-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

First Supervisor/Advisor

Dr. Fredrick Mtenzi

Second Supervisor/Advisor

Dr. Fortidas Bakuza

Department

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Abstract

The modern technological innovations are reshaping the educational landscape, influencing the pedagogical practices in today’s classrooms. In the 21st century, it is irrelevant to insist on conventional methods of teaching, which perpetuate teacher-centered pedagogy and use of print-based materials as the primary resources to facilitate the teaching and learning process. Consequently, teachers are rethinking the way they should teach vis-a-vis the way their students should learn. Multimedia has become one of the popular technological tools used to improve the teaching and learning process. The use of multimedia presentations offer students differentiated avenues to access curriculum content in their own preferred ways, leading to effective and meaningful learning. Multimedia technology is therefore one way through which teachers can implement ICT integration in education, to diversify and improve their teaching strategies and ultimately meet the learning needs and preferences of their students. This Participatory Action Research sought to establish how multimedia could be used to enhance the teaching and learning of poetry in English in a secondary school in Migori County, Kenya. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, classroom lesson observations, document analysis and reflective conversations. Findings from the study suggest that the use of multimedia increases learners’ engagement with poetry, improves understanding and retention of the poetic concepts learnt, stimulates interest, motivation and changes students’ attitude towards learning poetry. However, it emerged that these pedagogical benefits of multimedia cannot be realized unless teachers acquire basic ICT knowledge and skills or at best update their technological proficiency. The study recommends continuous professional development for teachers of English and literature on the design and use of multimedia to teach not only poetry but also other components of the English language curriculum. The curriculum developers should also produce multimedia resources for teaching poetry in secondary schools. Future studies should consider adopting a mixed methods design, and be carried out using a larger sample and within a longer period time to beef up the findings with statistical information on performance achievement.

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