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Journal of Education & Social Sciences - Volume 11, Issue 2 2023
By Esther Nanyinza
10.20547/jess1122311201
Keywords: Construction of sentences, question and answer, paraphrasing, prior knowledge, summarizing.
The major concern in teacher education has been the relationship between theory and practice among pre-service teachers. The study explored how pre-service teachers employed an information processing theory memory strategy of elaboration in the classroom to facilitate meaningful learning of English grammar. Participants included 10 pre-service teachers who were purposefully selected because they were undergoing teaching practice in 9 secondary schools in Malawi. Prior to data collection, informed consent was sort from participant in order to ensure and provide voluntary participation as part of ethical consideration. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations using interview schedules and observational schedule. The data was analyzed thematically and results presented in form of texts and tables. In line with this, the study unveiled a number of elaboration strategies used by pre-service teachers of the University of Livingstonia, Malawi. These strategies include; Construction of sentences with words, activating prior knowledge, question and answer technique, paraphrasing and summarizing. Results also show that elaboration strategies such as activation of prior knowledge help learners to master English grammar. The implications of this study are that teacher training institutions should strengthen their methodology courses through peer teaching in order help pre-service-teachers have first-hand experience of how to apply theoretical knowledge to actual classrooms. Another implication is that teacher preparation should incorporate lengthy practice teaching to enable pre-service teachers to improve their competency in applying theoretical knowledge.
Submission Date: 17 Jun, 2023 Reviews Completed: 30 Aug, 2023Acceptance Date: 13 Sep, 2023 Publication Date: 19 Sep, 2023