MISCONCEPTIONS AND PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF LITERACY ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AMONG STUDENT TEACHERS IN GHANA

The study sought to ascertain misconceptions and perceived importance of Literacy Across the Curriculum (LAC) among student teachers of Basic Education, University of Education, Winneba. Out of a targeted population of 1,386 student teachers of Basic Education, 490 were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. A closed-ended questionnaire was used to gather data and frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, independent samples t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation were used to examine the data obtained. The results, among others, revealed that the misconceptions held by Basic Education students at the University of Education, Winneba, was the fact LAC shoul be restricted to the Arts, and not the Sciences. They were of the view that students from the arts background should focus on developing their literacy skill in order to excel in their field. However, the students were of the view that LAC is important since through the use of language, symbols, and text, literacy is promoted across the curriculum to give students the ability to share information about themselves and their experiences. Based on these findings, it was suggested that literacy should be integrated in all aspects of the curriculum. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are to be taught to students as fundamental abilities for many facets of daily life, not only in English Language lessons. Lecturers and student teachers should ensure that literacy across the curriculum is promoted regardless of the course(s) they teach and study respectively.  Article visualizations: