Abstract:
This study sought to investigate the problem of dangling modifiers and sentence
fragments in the writing of students. Bolgatanga Senior High School was used as a case
study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population
was students and teachers of the school. A sample of 188 students and 2 teachers of
English were purposely selected for the study. Essay test and Questionnaires were used
in data collection. The findings of the study revealed that sentence fragment errors were
the most committed errors. Furthermore, students’ language background, motivation,
and attitude, failure to practice writing, poor vocabulary and grammar knowledge,
complex nature of the rules of the English language, environmental factors, and
inadequate skill of writing were the main sources of students' poor performance in
writing. Based on these findings, the researcher recommends that teachers should give
due attention to the errors their students made and lessen those areas accordingly.
Similarly, students should shape their learning strategies to benefit a lot from writing
activities and assignments by considering the long-term benefits of the English
language in general and writing skills in particular. Furthermore writing tutorial classes
should be arranged to help students develop their writing skills.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Languages Education and Communication submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies, in partial fulfilment
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
OCTOBER, 2020