Integrating Life Skills Learning and Teaching Support Materials into Teachers’ Teaching Strategies
Pelokazi Nqabeni 
and Elphina Nomabandla Cishe
Issue: Vol.4 No.6 14th June 2023 Article 4 pp.744-753
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2023464 | Published online 14th June, 2023
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This paper investigated the integration of Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM) into teachers’ teaching strategies to mediate teaching and learning in Life Skills Grade 3 Foundation Phase classrooms. The aim was to understand teachers’ teaching strategies integrating LTSMs to mediate teaching and learning. The South African National Policy Guidelines for LTSMs require teachers to be mediators of teaching to improve the quality of results. This paper was informed by Engestrom’s Cultural Historical Activity Theory, whose strength lies in its ability to enable researchers to understand learning as the complex result of tool-mediated interactions. The study used a qualitative methodology with an interpretive perspective. In order to gather and analyse data, semi-structured interviews, structured observation, and documents were used. Three Life Skills teachers were chosen using a purposeful sample process, and they were interviewed and observed in action. Themes that were formed from the subsidiary questions and coded for convenience referencing served as the guide for the data analysis under the guidance of content analysis. Findings revealed that teachers demonstrate a lack of learning and teaching support materials and a lack of professional development to integrate strategies during lesson presentations. The researchers concluded that there is an imperative need for Life Skills teachers to integrate LTSMs in their teaching strategies to guarantee access and support to the delivery of quality education. The authors recommend that the Department of Education should develop and equip Life Skills teachers to integrate LTSMs into their teaching strategies.
Keywords: Learning and teaching support materials, Life Skills, Mediate, Teaching.
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Pelokazi Nqabeni is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa. She holds a Doctor of Education Degree in the application of LTSMs in Life Skills as a subject. She has successfully supervised Bed Honours, master and doctoral learners in her areas of expertise and serves as an internal examiner in the same institution. Also, Pelokazi Nqabeni has presented papers at national and international conferences and published articles in the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) accredited journals. She is working in partnership on research projects with other universities, in South Africa. Pelokazi Nqabeni serves as a member of the Higher Degrees committee and also as a Faculty Board member at the Walter Sisulu University.
Professor Elphinah Nomabandla Cishe is a Nedbank Chair in Sustainable Rural Development and acting as a member of the Rational Team of the Mthatha Campus, which is the largest of four Campuses of the Walter Sisulu University in Eastern Cape, South Africa. The research in sustainable rural development was conceptulised against a background of the ongoing deepening rural poverty in the EC Province, which manifests itself through the increasing number of rural households who are neither deriving income from agricultural and non-agricultural activities. Prof Cishe is passionate about transformative research and research that has an impact on society researched. Prof Cishe has successfully supervised masters and doctoral learners in her areas of expertise and serves as an external examiner for some universities in South Africa. She has presented papers at national and international conferences and published articles in the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) accredited journals. Prof Cishe has served in academic and administrative senior portfolios at the university and has participated in national program reviews and institutional audits. She also serves in a number of education professional associations.
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© 2023 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
