Harmonizing Symbolic Representations and Teaching Methods with the Child’s Ability: A Discourse Analysis Approach

Symbolic representations and the methods a teacher adopts to teach pupils, especially at the lower levels are very germane to the actualization of a child’s learning goals and objectives.  Nowadays, many parents, teachers, school owners, and other educational stakeholders are interested in ensuring that a child graduates from one class to another at a rapid rate; whether or not the child understands what he/she learns is not the concern of many educational stakeholders today. This study investigates the graphic symbols and the methods that teachers use to teach pupils, especially at the lower levels. This is qualitative research that adopts Meaning-Text-Theory as its theoretical framework for data analysis. Data were randomly selected from English Alphabetic and phonic textbooks. Participant and non-participant observations of teachers’ teachings in pre-primary schools in Ogun and Lagos States, Nigeria, were adopted as instruments for data collection. One of the major findings reveals that the drilling and recitations methods that most teachers use in teaching their pupils yield little or no results as the pupils they teach find it difficult to neither identify nor understand what they are being taught. The paper, therefore, recommends that pupils should first be tested to know their capabilities before teachers apply learners’ friendly practical method because failure to do so may result in non-achievement of the learning goals and objectives. 

Keywords:

symbolic representations , Methods , Meaning-Text analysis , learning goals