https://kerd.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/26 2026-08-25T17:27:52Z https://kerd.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/1391 Medium of Instruction in School: The Indigenous Language, the National Language or the Official Language? A Case study from Multilingual Deep Rural Kenya Spernes, Kari Iren; Korir, Rose Ruto The connection between multilingualism and the school curriculum continues to engender debates on language preferences because of the potential to influence the amount of learning among learners. To understand language preferences among multilingual learners and their implications for the selection of the medium of instruction (MoI) in a multilingual country, data were collected through questionnaires and interviews among learners, teachers and head teachers in deep, rural Kenyan primary schools. These schools are located away from urban centres, with little or no basic infrastructure, hence the concept of “deep ruralness”. The participants were purposively sampled from among learners, teachers and head teachers to examine how learners’ affiliations with multilingualism could explain the preferred MoI, and the ways through which schools implement the use of an MoI in the curriculum. The findings show that Kiswahili and English were used as the MoI, even when the curriculum recommended indigenous languages and English. Moreover, learners’ multilingual affiliations and their spontaneous languages were their indigenous languages and Kiswahili. Based on these findings, we claim that the indigenous language, Kiswahili and English should be used as the languages of instruction in Kenyan schools. An article in the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 2018-04-24T00:00:00Z https://kerd.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/1086 Scaling up Successfully: Lessons from Kenya’s Tusome National Literacy Program Piper, Benjamin; Destefano, Joseph; Kinyanjui, Esther M.; Ong’ele, Salome Many successful piloted programs fail when scaled up to a national level. In Kenya, this has a long history of particularly inefective implementation after successful pilot programs, the Tusome national literacy program—which receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development—is a national-level scale-up of previous literacy and numeracy programs. We applied a scaling framework (Crouch and DeStefano in Doing reform differently: combining rigor and practicality in implementation and evaluation of system reforms. International development group working paper no. 2017-01, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, 2017. https://www.rti.org/publication/doing-reform-diferently-combining-rigor -and-practicality-implementation-and-evaluation) to examine whether Tusome’s implementation was rolled out in ways that would enable government structures and ofcers to respond efectively to the new program. We found that Tusome was able to clarify expectations for implementation and outcomes nationally using benchmarks for Kiswahili and English learning outcomes, and that these expectations were communicated all the way down to the school level. We noted that the essential program inputs were provided fairly consistently, across the nation. In addition, our analyses showed that Kenya developed functional, if simple, accountability and feedback mechanisms to track performance against benchmark expectations. We also established that the Tusome feedback data were utilized to encourage greater levels of instructional support within Kenya’s county level structures for education quality support. The results indicated that several of the key elements for successful scale-up were therefore put in place. However, we also discovered that Tusome failed to fully exploit the available classroom observational data to better target instructional support. In the context of this scaling framework, the Tusome literacy program’s external evaluation results showed program impacts of 0.6–1.0 standard deviations on English and Kiswahili learning outcomes. The program implemented a functional classroom observational feedback system through existing government systems, although usage of those systems varied widely across Kenya. Classroom visits, even if still falling short of the desired rate, were far more frequent, were focused on instructional quality, and included basic feedback and advice to teachers. These fndings are promising with respect to the ability of countries facing quality problems to implement a coherent instructional reform through government systems at scale. An article in the Journal of Educational Change 2018-07-11T00:00:00Z https://kerd.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/929 Songs as a Resource for the Teaching of English Lexical Items to Speakers of Gĩkũyũ in a Multilingual Environment. Njoroge, Martin C.; Gathiga, Moses G. Knowledge of lexical items is fundamental to the development of language proficiency. In order to appeal to young learners to comprehend the meaning of lexical items and enhance language proficiency, songs can be effective tools for the teaching of English lexical items. Songs are not just for fun; they are a valuable educational tool that aids language acquisition as well as the whole learner’s physical and mental development. The focus of this paper, therefore, is to demonstrate the applicability of songs as a resource for the teaching of English lexical items. The study used 12 adult respondents who had learnt English as a second language using Gĩkũyũ songs with English lexical terms. The paper explains with the use of three Gĩkũyũ / English songs, purposively sampled, to illustrate how songs were applied and can still be applied in the teaching of English lexical items. The study notes that songs employ tactile-kinesthetic activities in which language is intentionally manipulated to facilitate lexical items acquisition in a multilingual context. This paper concludes that songs are an important resource in the teaching of second languages as they make teaching and learning enjoyable and instructional. The findings of this study are significant as they add a new learning paradigm intended to provide to language instructors, learners and curriculum developers with insights into the value of songs for vocabulary acquisition. An article in semantic scholar journals 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://kerd.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/924 Reasons and Types of Code Switching Patterns in Private Pre School in Kenya. Martha, Liambila Code switching deals with languages in contact. In social situations code switching is characterized by the use of more than two languages in the same context. In private preschools the languages in contact are Kiswahili, English and mother tongue. This is not expected by the stake holders, educators and the managers who prefer the use of English language as code of instruction in teaching and learning. This has not worked well because there are few families where English is the language of the home. Code switching plays a vital role; it acts as a bridge in learning, teaching and use of the English language. This paper explores the reasons and types of code switching patterns in private preschools during their social interactions. It is evident that code switching fulfills the communicative function, which is a key requirement during teaching and learning process in the classroom. An article International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) 2016-07-07T00:00:00Z