Abstract

The study was set to fine out the effect of geography teaching methods on students’ academic achievement of form five geography students of Government Bilingual Grammar School Molyko Buea.

The objective of the study was; the effect of lecture illustration teaching method on the academic achievement of form five geography students, to determine how cooperative learning teaching method affect students’ academic achievement in geography. The sample population was 3 teachers and 8 students of Government Bilingual Grammar School Molyko that were interview making a total of 10.

The major finding was; that from the interview, students agreed that cooperative learning method of teaching enhance good academic achievement. Students also agreed that, lecture illustration method of teaching increases their academic achievement in geography.

By this, the research concludes that an eclectic method of teaching is preferable in the enhancement of a good academic achievement in Geography.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This chapter will lay emphasis on the background of the study, statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, significant of the study and operational definition of terms.

Background of the Study

 Historically, before the use of formal education, there had been the existence of indigenous education around (1884) before the German annexation. According to Tambo (2003) under educational administration, there existed indigenous education which governs the lives of the indigenous community.

The indigenous society used formal method to transmit knowledge from the elders to the children, before the coming of formal education of the western world, the methods used for the study where communalism which is an approach parents used to raise their children within a community and each individual saw his or her wellbeing as tide to the welfare of the community.

According to Kellough (1988) most parent and teachers where very interested in teaching their children to grow deeper in the knowledge using different method without using text books which will help them improve on their performance. Again during that time, teachers were untrained unlike today that teachers are trained and yet performance is still low and students are less active in class, this is due to the lack of interest by the teachers to use these methods appropriately.

The evolution trend of the formal method of teaching in the past has evolve the used of modern methods introduced by the western world as formal method are used to transfer knowledge from a more knowledgeable to a less knowledgeable person. With the evolvement of technology, modern methods are introduced like the use of cooperative learning, lecture illustration, lecture demonstration, laboratory method and discussion method. These methods of teaching have greatly influenced the performance of the students in different subjects. Santock (2004) supported the fact that lecture illustration is one of the best methods used in the teaching of geography.

According to Benson and Doval (2002), lecture illustration is a modern method used to teach and the main function of the teacher is to explain and illustrate and to test the learners, to find out if the students have learned.

Another modern method used to teach geography is the cooperative learning strategy which is supported by Johnson et la, (1984) and Widemen and Eadie (1990) that students in cooperative work in small groups of two, three, four, five. These educationalists say that when students are shared in to small groups of four to five they turn to share idea easily without any difficulty and thus perform very well.

Contextually, Geography is a subject which is taught both practically and theoretically.  The practical part are field trips and map work, these are the practical sections in geography and during exam every student is expected to answer a question in each of these sections. Some teachers tend to neglect this practical part of carrying students out for field trip. They feel so reluctant to take students to the field for them to acquire knowledge for themselves. Instead, they tend to concentrate on the theoretical and statistical sections which students always escape from it or pay less interest on. Since field trip is something which lies cannot be told when written. Many students abandon the section to the statistical part which requires a lot of calculation.

This caused them to perform poorly in their exams and also makes them to have little or no knowledge concerning field trip.

The teaching of geography goes along side with diagrams or illustration. So geography cannot be taught without the teacher explaining it with diagrams. When the teacher comes to class to explain the note, they don’t longer draw diagram on the board for students to see instead they tend to give it to students as an assignment. So in the next class some of the teachers do not bother checking if the students have drawn the right diagram or not, or to checked if they have the right diagrams or not. They are situation where, when assignments are given for students to do it at home like drawing of maps some students go drawing the wrong one even though the title is boldly written on it. it might be the outdated one so, teachers need to check student’s book whenever an assignment is given, because they might go drawing the wrong map or diagram in their exams which might affect their academic performance.

Theoretically, according to Kolb (2011), learning involves learning from experience. The experiential theory proposed by Kolb takes a more holistic approach and emphasis how experience includes cognition, environmental factors and emotional influence. He gave an example of experiential theory as field work conversion, group work in and out of the classroom, open ended discussion activities. When learners are put in group for them to perform a given task it makes them gain more experience. Also when any explanation is accompanied with a presentation like presenting color print maps, globes, it makes the students to learn new things from that lesson thought and gain more knowledge in explaining that particular topic or concept without any problem. Moreover, group work activities go along side with cooperative teaching method which is one of the most effective methods used in the teaching of geography. When students with mixed ability are grouped together to work it helps them to build their communication skills and self-confidence.

Kolb in his theory also started field trip conversion as an example of experiential learning. Learning becomes more effective when the have experience on something the can construct knowledge on their own. When the teachers take students out for field trip which is one of the best tools that can be used to provide every student with real- world experience, whether these students are carried to a museum or community garden experience can still be gotten from there. Each experience that a student participates in contributes to his or her understanding.

When the students leave the classroom they see the connections between what is happening at school and in the real world, they begin to see that what they learn within the walls of the classroom can help them solve problems, have a direct impact on who they become as a people. Teaching becomes more interesting when the teachers use the most appropriate method. Geography is not a subject that requires only verbal discussion. It required students to discover knowledge by going to the field and getting some experience.

The constructivism theory by Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), state that learners construct new understanding and knowledge, integrating it with what they already know. The constructivism stated that students learn best when engaged in the learning experience rather passively receiving knowledge. Learning becomes more effective when learners are actively involved in the process. When students participate in the teaching and learning, process they learn many things, they participate or take part in the process by asking questions in class. If it is practical work the learner should be the one working and the teacher should only be there giving direction to take.

When the students allow only the teacher participate in the teaching and learning process it makes learning become inactive because the goal of education is for the students to understand what the teacher is teaching. Learning is inherently a social process because it is embedded within a social context. Students and teachers work together; it builds knowledge because knowledge cannot be directly imparted to students. The goal of teaching is to provide experience that facilitates the construction of knowledge.

Conceptually, the following concept will be reviewed; teaching method, cooperative learning, and lecture illustration.

Teaching method are important aspect of teaching and learning. It determined the activities of teachers and students, the quality of the teaching process, implicitly sending a message about what teaching is, how children learn and what is knowledge.

According to Tambo (2003), teaching method are important component for the curriculum for they determine how effective the objective would be attained. Figuring out the best way you can used to delivered information to students can sometime be even harder than what students go through in discovering how they learn best. This is because every teacher needs a variety of different teaching method in their theoretical teaching bag to pull from depending on the lesson. Using this different teaching method like lecture illustration and cooperative learning which are effectively used in the teaching of geography. This method would not only make the teachers to reach their full potentials, but more importantly engage, motivate and reach the students in their classes whether in person or online. But if this teaching method is chosen wrongly its will tend to affect the academic achievement of students leading to poor result in both class and public exams.

Cooperative learning teaching method, the purposed of cooperative learning is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right. Student learn together so that the can subsequently perform higher as individual and for them to gain experience. How students interact with each other is a neglected aspect of instruction. Much training time is devoted to helping teachers arrange appropriate interaction between student and materials (that is textbooks, curriculum programs) and sometimes is spent on how teacher should interact with one another is relatively ignored it should not be. How teachers structure students- student interaction pattern has a lot to say about how well students learn.

Cooperative learning is now an accepted and often the preferred instructional procedure at all level of education. In the late 1940, one of the Lewins graduate student, Morton Deutsch, extended Lewins reasoning about social interdependence and formulate a theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949 1962). Deutsch conceptualized three types of social interdependence, positive, negative and none. Deutsch basic premise was that the type of interdependence structure in a situation determine how individual interact with each other which intend largely determine outcome.

Lecture illustration is a teaching method where explanation is accompanied with some illustration Tambo (2003). Illustrations like the use of globes, diagrams, graphs. In this method, the teacher explained and tests if the student has understood. The teacher can test by asking them question and to illustrate. It is important that when using this teaching method the illustration most be available beforehand. It should be visible and colorful.

 Statement of the Problem

The academic performance of the students in geography can be greatly influenced by the method used in teaching. Each method has its way of teaching which depends on the level of the students and the subject. Some teachers use lecture method to teach Geography in secondary school without considering the age of the students. Thus making students not to participate in the class and not giving them inferential thinking skill, leading to a situation where students are not active in the classroom and not having interest in the subject, causing poor performance. Poor performance may lead to school dropout.

It is for this reason that, this study seeks to find out the effect of lecture illustration and cooperative learning method on students’ performance in Geography among form five students in Bilingual Grammar School Molyko Buea.

 General Objective

The general objective of this study is to find out the effect of lecture illustration and cooperative learning teaching methods in geography on student’s academic achievement of form five students of Government Bilingual Grammar school Molyko.

Specific Objectives

The specific objective of this study is to find out the effect of;

1. Lecture illustration teaching method on the academic achievement of form five geography students of Government Bilingual Grammar school Molyko Buea.
2. Cooperative learning teaching method on the academic achievement of form five geography students of Government Bilingual Grammar school Molyko Buea

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