Abstract:
This is a qualitative study aimed at investigating the grammatical errors students of
Ghana Senior High School, Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana commit in their
essay writing. The study sought to identify grammatical errors and examine the causes
of the errors. To achieve these objectives, essays from 201 students randomly selected
from across the three streams were collected and analyzed. In all, 2864 errors were
identified; verb related errors, concord, prepositional, adverbial, number, article and
sentence fragments, spelling, and punctuation errors. The findings of the study
indicate that causes of errors in learners‟ writing include incomplete learning of rules,
ignorance of rule restrictions, overgeneralization of concepts and rules, context of
instruction as well as L1 interference. Based on these findings, it is recommended that
teachers should make conscious attempts at understanding the L1 oftheir students.
Finally and most importantly, teachers should adopt the communicative teaching
method in order to minimize errors.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Language Education and Communication, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Education
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba
SEPTEMBER, 2019
