- Team teaching may also include arrangements to form clusters, and do joint exams: organise symposia, creative writing, debate and public speaking competitions.
- Such initiatives promote healthy competition and team spirit.
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In the recent past, I was a teacher of English Language and Literature in a certain nascent private secondary school in this jungle of concrete of Nairobi.
However, I stopped dispensing knowledge at the school when an irresistible urge seduced me to venture into educational consultancy.
Today, I take a mental flight to those old good days. In a riveting rehash, I am redolent of what we did with a fellow teacher of English in 2015 and 2016. We were teaching in private schools, which were in close range. That teacher is Michael Masinde, who is also a seasoned scribe.
We met in an English pow-wow as keynote facilitators. Thereafter, we established a profound bond as proficient teachers of the Queen’s language. After that colourful colloquium, being that I was an administrator at my workstation, it was very easy to invite him to sharpen my students in English. He did not dare to dither. He showed up, and made an impeccable presentation that left my candidate class glad and grateful.
Afterwards, the fellow penman also invited me to talk to his sedulous students. True to my words and deeds, I honoured his cordial invitation. Serendipitously, this became the genesis of a close academic camaraderie heretofore. In turn, the intense intellectual interactions made students under our training and tutelage to garner good grades in English Language and Literature.
In 2017, I quit being an active classroom teacher, in order to focus fully on writing, editing, training and public speaking. Albeit, when time allows, I still visit my friend to prop up his students: to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. More so, in poetry, which happens to be the genre I love above everything else in the literary agora. Poetry being my pet subject in English also compelled Jackson Makula and I to co-author Nuts and Bolts of Secondary Poetry.
Therefore, based on my humble humming, it is clear like crystal: Joint effort in teaching made our English disciples to scoop good grades. We were two, lending credence to wise and winsome words, “When two heads combine, the third one emerges.” The sage says in Ecclesiastes 4:9, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour.”
The collaborative approach to teaching English helped us to soar high like eagles. For instance, during that time the compulsory KCSE set texts were The River and The Source by Margaret Atieno Ogola and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. I must admit: That I met big breakthrough in the in-depth analysis of The River and The Source.
I think I understood that great text better because I knew the geographical setting of the story that revolved around the sultry shores of Lake Victoria. That place I was born and brought up features in that thrilling tale.
Conversely, when I started teaching The Caucasian Chalk Circle, I struggled to understand it. I read it for the umpteenth time. Then, went through good guides churned out by putative experts of English. Unfortunately, the heroic book was still puzzling to decode. The story remained clouded in mist and mystery.
I know most preceptors would hardly cite their struggles this way because of the spectre of hubris, chutzpah or ‘I-know-it-all attitude’. On my side, I had to look for a practical solution. Somewhat, when I invited Masinde to talk to my students about the Marxist text, I had to be ubiquitous throughout the incisive session. Luckily, it solved my problem. Somewhat, team teaching saved me from the shame of misunderstanding the set text. The moral of my self-disclosure is simply this: Team teaching can help teachers polish pale parts and attain more mastery.
Again, English syllabus is big and broad. When teachers engage in team teaching. For instance at departmental level, they can break down various tasks and assign each other based on the areas of intense interest. Team teaching also entails setting, marking and moderating exams at the departmental level.
Schools with adequate staff can adopt this stupendous strategy. Let a teacher pick a specific area like poetry, another one to pick grammar — and so on, and so forth. This thing can also work when it comes to the teaching of the KCSE set texts.
Teachers can pick different set texts like the compulsory play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, or the novel Blossoms of the Savannah by Henry Ole Kulet. Of course, as we think to go that way, we must brace up ourselves for prevailing challenges. For instance, a teacher who is lazy and lackadaisical in nature may opt for a lesser load.
Furthermore, team teaching can spill to the neighbourhood. Especially schools that share the fence, such as Alliance Boys and Alliance Girls; Meru School and Kaaga Girls; Kisii School and Kereri Girls; St. Joseph’s Boys Kitale and St. Joseph’s Girls Kitale; Kolanya Girls and Kolanya Boys.
More importantly, in team teaching, teachers of English can meet regularly; compare notes in relation to pedagogy and methodology. They can confab about best academic practices, insightful instructional materials they can use in order to access academic success.
Team teaching may also include arrangements to form clusters, and do joint exams: organise symposia, creative writing, debate and public speaking competitions. Such initiatives promote healthy competition and team spirit. Indeed, through team teaching, tutors impress upon themselves and learners the essence of collaboration as a soft skill worth honing in these times and climes.
The writer is an editor, author, trainer and a peripatetic public speaker [email protected]/0704420232