The Kenyan Government through the Ministry of Education has since independence been committed to improving education and inclusion of children with audio, visual, physical and mental disabilities. Despite the fact that considerable change and growth have been realized since the ratification of treaties such as United Nation Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the implementation of inclusive free and appropriate education for learners living with Specific Learning disabilities still remains a challenge. This limits the potential of students with specific learning disabilities especially in mainstream classrooms, to acquire basic literacy skills including spoken language, reading, writing, spelling and comprehension. Literacy skills are key in determining performance in other subjects taught in the school curriculum. The overall objective of this study is the exploration of the application and relevance of the Orton Gillingham structured literacy teaching approach to pupils living with dyslexia in Kenyan public primary schools. This qualitative study used content analysis to explore appropriate teaching methodology to pupils with such challenges. The study analyzed various studies that have been done on the appropriateness and effectiveness of the Orton Gillingham method and its application and relevance to the Kenyan school context.

It is observed that the majority of English non-native speakers (NNSs) use English as a Lingua Franca among themselves rather than as a foreign language to communicate with English native speakers (NSs). Nonetheless, the English language attitude of NNSs in the context of ELF has not been clear so far. Many studies on accent attitude have assumed that their participants had been aware of different English accents and had the ability to identify them, but it seems not true for a certain number of students. Therefore, this research surveyed 50 Chinese university students and 30 overseas students from other expanding circle countries. Three aspects were examined: (1) the ability to identify and understand different English accents; (2) the familiarity with different English accents; (3) the accent attitude in the aspects of pleasantness and acceptance. The results indicated that the accent attitude of participants correlated with their identification ability to some degree. Participants who were more familiar with different English accents tended to show higher acceptance for them. Their acceptance depended largely on the intelligibility of the accents. In addition, only a few students would like to show their cultural identity through speaking English with a local accent. This study addressed a significant research gap in the position of students’ identification ability for different English accents in the context of ELF. Based on this study, the educators in the expanding circle could be more aware of the impact of the development of ELF on students.

‘Church Going’ by Philip Larkin, the romantic recluse is not a religious poem, as it may appear from the title, but a poem about Going to Church. The poem expresses a view that faith and belief in religion must die but that the spirit of tradition represented by the English Church can’t come to an end. Larkin’s agnosticism becomes more understandable if we look at this poem in the National and the International context of the post-world-war years. The poem refers both to the erosion of the Church as an Institution and to the perpetuation of some kind of ritual observance. The poet’s tone is pessimistic and somewhat sceptic about the bleak future of the Church. But he is quite confident of the lasting mystic spiritual significance of the Church, “Serious house on serious earth” for its devotees. Larkin’s dilemma is not whether to believe in God but what to put in God’s place. The loss of religious faith and the fear of death are counteracted by an unshakable faith in individual human potential. So, the poem is both reverent and irreverent that indicate poet’s dual split personality, skepticism, agnosticism.

The study is premised upon the enormity and relevance of African myths and legends as congenial substance for the continuity of African culture and writing tradition. Existing literary engagements have focused on the usage of myths and legends in African literature, their consistent usage in fictional writings is aesthetically commendable, however, the modern days African writers appear to be delusive in this literary endeavor. This is the lacuna this paper seeks to fill by advocating for the reinventing and entrenching of mythical and legendary characters in contemporary and future African writings. The paper investigates the extent of import, inculcation and exploration of myths and legends in some extant African writings, it pontificates their literary aestheticism, cultural beautification and prognostic values in African society. Significantly, the paper elucidates the pedagogical didactics that are intrinsically inherent in the myths and legends in spite of the seemingly archaic existence attributed to them. African writers that have creatively used mythical and legendary sources are highly commended and appreciated and passionate appeals have been made through this paper to the contemporary and future African writers to effectuate the representation and entrenchment of the continental cultural myths and legends in subsequent creative writing for the purpose of cultural integration and propagation, rejuvenation of cultural material and dispersal of moral values.