From Access to Quality Secondary Education: Developing Language Supportive Textbooks to Enhance Teaching and Learning of Biology Subject in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper reports findings from the development of Language Supportive Biology Textbook (LSBT) for Form I students in Tanzanian secondary schools to address the challenge of language barrier to learning. The LSBT was thus developed to facilitate smooth transition from Kiswahili to English language medium of instruction in learning Biology. The study used a participatory action research design that involved 2 experts from Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), 2 Biology specialists from universities, 1 language specialist from UDOM, a total of 12 Biology teachers and Form I students from 12 rural secondary schools located in Dodoma, Lindi and Morogoro Regions in Tanzania. Accordingly, we designed and prototyped a Biology textbook that is language accessible, supportive and relevant to Tanzanian context. We presented Biology content using a variety of illustrations and Original Research Articlehands-on activities. The language features included English-Kiswahili glossary on each page and bilingual activities within which Kiswahili is used as a resource to learn English. Besides, the material has learning activities filled with examples drawn from the students' context. The study used classroom observations during prototyping process, analysis of experts' reviews, and the interviews with teachers and students to gather data to document the development and effectiveness of the LSBT. The overall findings indicated that students' interaction in learning through talking, negotiating meaning, forming sentences, and presenting biological facts increased than it was before. The paper recommends that it is necessary to use of action research that involves educational stakeholders to develop potential features of a language and pedagogical supportive textbooks for quality education.

Practice in Teaching and Learning of Invertebrates: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Pedagogical Language Strategies in Tanzania Secondary Schools

“…Results collected from pre-test revealed that biology teachers could not manage to set language objectives to be achieved in class. The reason behind can well be explained by lack of such important element in the current Tanzania biology syllabus (MoEVT, 2010), teachers' expertise and teaching and learning resources (Gabrieli, Sane, & Alphonce, 2018). In teachers' expertise aspect, the challenge was on the identification of content and language specific objectives.…”

“…The choice of Dodoma was justified by the fact that it ranked among the regions which had poor performance in biology subject in form four National examinations in past 6 years (MoEVT, 2014b , MoEST, 2015, 20162018, 2019. One of the courses of this poor performance was ascertained to be the lack of teaching and learning resources and language of instruction (Gabrieli, Sane, & Alphonce, 2018).…”

“…Moreover, in schools where learners are not sufficiently proficient in the language of learning and teaching, the learning process is disconnected (Rubagumya, 2003). To overcome this challenge and make teaching and learning meaningful and interesting to students, teachers need to employ methods that promote learner centeredness with language support (Gabrieli, Sane, & Alphonce, 2018).…”

“…Language in relation to teaching and learning of biology has been a challenge to Tanzania secondary education (Gabrieli, Sane, & Alphonce, 2018). The reasons are not well documented, but studies conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa indicated that the language of instruction and the curricula heaviness become a challenge (Barrett & Bainton, 2016;Brock-Utne, 2014).…”

“…However, the English language is not used by students as well as teachers in everyday life (Rubagumya, 2003). In addition, more endeavor is required to understand the suitability of English as a language and method for scaffolding science learning, invertebrate systematic in this case (Gabrieli, Sane, & Alphonce, 2018). Dunn (2003) in his research, indicated that most of the learners are challenged by the content of invertebrates, particularly in classification.…”