Abstract:
English as a Second Language (ESL) writing is a challenge to most of the students in Ghanaian
schools. This study was carried out to investigate the concord problems among students of
Kintampo Senior High School. The purpose was to find out the nature and causes of these
concord errors which involved subject-verb agreement in the way students use it especially in
writing. The participants who took part in the study were form one General Arts and Home
Science students of Kintampo Senior High School. The tools used were test, observation and
questionnaire in their spoken English and during concord lessons with their English teacher.
Data collected were analyzed using tables, and descriptions which made comparison of preintervention
and post-intervention results easy. Having analyzed the data, the study revealed
that students were not proficient in the use of grammatical concord as a result of poor foundation
they had in their previous level (JHS) before entering senior high school. Concord errors were
caused by such factors as the inconsistency in the concord rules of English, overgeneralization
of the rules as well as the interference of the mother tongue (L1) in English. In other to minimize
concord errors, the study offered a variety of strategies that could be employed by both teachers
and learners of English. The study concludes that more exciting methods such as grammar in
context, use of substitution tables, practice drills among others should be employed by teachers
to arouse students’ interest in the language.
Description:
A DISSERTATION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED LINQUISTICS, FACULTY
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION, SUBMITTED
TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION,
WINNEBA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
AWARD OF MASTER OF EDUCATION IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND
LANGUAGE (TESL) DEGREE
SEPTEMBER, 2018