Senior High School Students and Poor Use of Language Mechanics in Essay Writing: the Case of Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu Municipality.
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The objective of the study is to ascertain the senior high school students and poor use of language mechanics in essay writing. The specific objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the errors students made in essay writing in winneba senior high school in Effutu Municipality
- To ascertain are the types of errors made in essay writing in winneba senior high school in Effutu Municipality
- To find out the causes of the errors in essay writing in winneba senior high school in Effutu Municipality
- To find out possible solutions to these errors in essay writing in winneba senior high school in Effutu Municipality
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
The goal of this section is to provide a survey of the punctuation literature. McCaskill (1998) asserts that punctuation is used in texts to clarify meaning and facilitate reading. The four purposes of punctuation are further outlined by McCaskill (1998) as follows: separating sentences (period), grouping or enclosing unnecessary material (parentheses), connecting a unit modifier (hyphen), and conveying meaning (question mark may make an otherwise declarative sentence interrogative). It is important to remember that the rules governing punctuation use should be used to assess whether a particular type of punctuation mark is required for use in a particular construction. Moreover, McCaskill (1998) has argued that the modern tendency is to punctuate to prevent misreading (close style) rather than to use all punctuation that the grammatical structure will allow (close style); and he furthers that awell-punctuated report is only a matter of consistency in the author’s or editor’s subjective decision since the modern style of punctuation is more subjective and arbitrary as in the case of comma and hyphen. Kirkman has also mentioned the difficulty and misunderstanding caused by a lack of punctuation (2006). The author then defends the difficulties posed by the lack of punctuation using an excerpt from a number of authors, which is displayed below. As the machine develops, the formats we employ to store data from past projects will change (Kirkman, 2006, p.3). The excerpt above definitely raises questions because it’s feasible for different readers to interpret it differently.
As a result, adding a comma after “develops” clarifies the statement’s meaning. Researchers have found issues of a similar nature in the writings of some other authors, mostly with students. For instance, Akampirige and Apam (2014), focusing on the mistakes in the use of punctuation marks among polytechnic students in Ghana, found that the students still struggle to recognize punctuation marks in written text and also inadvertently employ them in their own creative writings. The study found that a staggering 63 percent of the students chosen for the study were unable to distinguish between the colon and the semi-colon when using the test item of an unpunctuated passage as an instrument.. Msanjila (2005) has likewise emphasized among other grammatical areas of writing, the problem with the usage of punctuation among Kiswahili pupils in Tanzanian. According to the report, 51% of the pupils utilized punctuation marks incorrectly. He claimed that the pupils’ essays did not make sufficient use of the commas, which are frequently utilized to help extended sentences convey their intended meaning. This hinders kids’ ability to write clearly and accurately.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter deals with the methods of date collection for this research work which covers the senior high school students and poor use of language mechanics in essay writing in some selected secondary schools in Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu municipality. This chapter also serves as the basis to draw out the findings and conclusion of the study.
Research Design
This study aims to determine whether teachers assist students in text composition or not by identifying the common challenges students encounter when writing essays. So, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used in this research. For this study, qualitative research was carried out. This method is employed to investigate and comprehend the significance of the individual or group in the social field. Mason (as referenced in Mackey and Gass, 2005) Descriptive data that are not subject to statistical analysis must be referred to in qualitative research. Since the objective of this study was the analytic procedure, it is applied to a small sample size.
Quantitative approach is also used in this study to provide the descriptive statistics in order to figure out students’ perception for their teachers’ poor use of language mechanics in essay writing. According to Creswell (2009, p. 233) “Quantitative research is a means for testing objective theories by examining the relationship among variables. These variables can be measured, typically on instruments, so that numbered data can be analyzed using statistical procedures”.
Population and Sample
The research conducted in Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu municipality. The researcher chose the school because during the teaching practice in the school was found there was no significant improvement of the students’ writing competence. The researcher selected the senior high school students as the population. Hence, in this case the researcher chose the respondents purposively. The researcher chose the class based on the teacher’s recommendation. The teacher stated that the students in the class more focus in learning essay writing lesson than senior high school students. Moreover, they already tested to join in senior high school entered in language major class. It considered the language major students’ level would be a standard measure for this research to find out students’ problem in writing.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the presentation and analysis of data on the Senior High School students and poor use of language mechanics in essay writing of Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu municipality. A total of thirty students were examine of which ten-ten is given from each school, therefore, the data is presented in statistical tables showing frequency of essay writing of errors, numbers of scripts assessed and percentage of occurrence of each essay writing error. Examples are cited showing the wrong use of tenses and the necessary substitutions of the wrong usage (errors) are also provided.
The following are the areas where the data is analyzed in the second part of the chapter:
- Present tense
- Past tense
- Future tense
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This chapter is concerned with the summary, recommendation and conclusion of the research work.
Summary
Chapter one is an introductory chapter, it looks at the reasons for the conduct of this research work on tense errors in the mentioned schools. The aims and objectives of the work, statement of the problems, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, method of data collection, method of data presentation and analysis are all explicated in this chapter.
Chapter two is a literature review where relevant texts were consulted. The chapter discusses causes of poor language mechanic essay writing.
Chapter three deals with the method of data collection for the research work from some selected Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu municipality
Chapter four analyzes and interprets the data collected. Four tables were drawn, each with the following information; tense, frequency of errors, number of scripts assessed percentage of occurrence and total table one (1) showed the number of tense errors made on the use of present tense. Table two (2) was on the use of past tense and table three (3) deals with the student’s use of future tense. While table four (4) showed the final analysis and discussion of the results.
Different extracts on the wrong use of the present tense, past tense and future tense were collected and corrected.
Conclusion
The study examined tense as used by secondary schools students in Winneba Senior High School in the Effutu municipality where thirty answer scripts were collected and analyzed.
The official language of instruction in schools is English. Although it fulfills the aforementioned function, many of its Nigerian users do not speak it as their mother tongue, therefore their usage of it differs from that of a native speaker.
Sometimes a student’s improper use of the tense is caused by the English language’s complexity. This causes ambiguity in the manner that some tenses are utilized.
This study was motivated by students’ lack of understanding of the English tense system. The ignorance is a blatant signal that some pupils have significant weaknesses in the English language’s grammatical structure, which could be an impediment to their future academic success.
Recommendation
- Government and the school authorities should see that trained and competent teachers handle the teaching of English in both primary and secondary schools more especially in the senior classes of the secondary schools in order to ensure that pupils acquire the fundamental knowledge of the use of tenses right from the beginning.
- Students should be encouraged to use the English language intensively. A lot of practice and intensive teaching can remedy the problems of tense identification.
- Government should provide adequate textbooks on English grammar to the pupils. Schools in rural areas should not be neglected academically. Trained teachers and textbooks and other learning materials should be made available in all schools.
References
- Akampirige, A. O. M. & Apam, B. (2014).Errors in the use of punctuation marks amongpolytechnic students. International Journal of English Language and Literate Studies, 3(1), 93-98. ii.
- Alfaki, I. M. (2015). University students’ English writing problems: Diagnosis and remedy. International Journal of English Language Teaching, 3(3), 40-52. Iii
- .Al Seyabi, F. & Tuzlukova, V. (2014). Writing problems and strategies: An investigativestudy in the Omanischool and university contexts. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities,(4), 37-48. Iv
- .Amua-Sekyi, E.T. (2010b) English as a second language in Ghana and English language teaching: Problems and prospects. The Oguaa Educator,12(1) 24-30. V
- .Elashri, I. I. E. A. F. (2013). The impact of the direct teacherfeedback strategy on the EFL secondary stage students’ writing performance.PhDthesis, Mansoura University, Faculty of Education, Department of Curricular and Methods, English Section. vi.
- Ghabool, N., Mariadass, M. E. & Kashef, S. H. (2012).Investigating Malaysian ESL students’ writing problems on conventions, punctuation, and language use at secondary school level. Journal of Studies in Education, 2(3), 130-143. vii.
