Problems Faced in Teaching Iban Traditional Poems Amongst Teachers: A Need Analysis

Abstract

The importance of pedagogical content amongst teachers in enhancing students’ performance had been highlighted in the literature. However, there were issues and lack of knowledge in teaching literature and challenges in teaching style which proved ineffective in enhancing students’ performance in Iban literature. Therefore, there was a need to develop a pedagogical module of teaching Iban traditional poems based on 21st-century education. To develop a comprehensive pedagogical module, it was aimed to identify the need of the module’s development based on teacher’s view. Hence, this article focuses on the need analysis phase attempted to identify issues and challenges as well as their current teaching and learning practices in Iban traditional poems lessons. Six teachers have been interviewed and data were analyzed using content analysis. The studies revealed that the current issues are lack of knowledge in literature itself and limited teaching resources. The impacts of these issues then become a challenge in delivery the lesson as some of the teachers were not familiar with the traditional poems. They were also selected in teaching Iban because of their races and not based on their option. As a result, the development of the pedagogical module of Iban traditional poems in the next stage of the research needs to integrate with narrative and multimedia.