Errors in written essays, a case study of form two students of St. Paul Methodist JHS, Tema

Abstract

English Language has emerged as an important means of communication enjoying the status of a second language as it is offered as a compulsory subject in Ghanaian schools from the upper primary to the SHS. This is a qualitative study aimed at finding the common errors form two students of Saint Paul Methodist JHS in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana commit in their essay writing. The study also sought to examine the causes of the errors and how they can be remedied to improve the teaching of L2 writing in the school. The study used a corpus of essay writings of 40 form two students. The school and the participants were purposively selected. The data were analyzed using the error analysis approach. The study identified these common errors spelling, word omission, tense, punctuation, article and capitalization. The study also found that the most frequently committed error was spelling errors followed by word omission errors. The implications of these findings to the teaching of English writing are that teachers, where possible should have sufficient understanding of both the L1 and L2 of the students and teachers should explicitly teach for transfer, have adequate knowledge of how to identify students’ writing errors, and use effective teaching strategies to improve students’ English writing. Additionally, teachers should serve as worthy models of using appropriate English for students to emulate and also create a conducive classroom environment for students to participate in class activities. Lastly, teachers should create more opportunities for students to write.