Abstract:
Studies have shown that the major English writing problem area of students is the
violation of English concord rules. The pupils of Ayetepa Basic Schools are no
exception of this problem. Although concord rules are taught at the primary level and
even in JHS 1, the JHS 2 pupils of Ayetepa D/A Basic „A‟ and „B‟ still have
challenges making the words in their sentences agree with one another. This study
therefore examined the specific concord errors that JHS 2 pupils of Ayetepa D/A
Basic „A‟ and „B‟ schools have challenges in and also to find out the possible causes
of these errors. A qualitative research design was adopted to randomly sample 60
pupils from the two schools. Both written essays and objective test items were
employed to gather the data for analysis. Different concord errors identified in the
data are grammatical concord errors, determiner-noun concord errors, verb tense
concord errors, indefinite pronoun concord errors, and proximity concord errors.
From these types, the errors were seen to have been caused by L1 interference,
ignorance of rule restrictions, and incomplete application of rules, overgeneralization,
and false analogy. Based on the results, it is argued that teachers need to use variety of
techniques in lesson delivery in order for the pupils to produce English sentences
without concord 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
