Concord problems in the writings of Senior High School students. the case study of Tema Technical Institute

Abstract

The problem of form two students of Tema Technical Institute in the use of concord cannot be overemphasized. Eighty percent (80%) of the students cannot use concord correctly. This is seen in students’ written exercises, conversations, class discussions, as well as asking or responding to oral questions. Thus, this study sought to firstly identify the causes of concord errors in English language among form two students of Tema Technical Institute and use the results of the study to make recommendation to the stakeholders in education as to how to improve the performance of students and other learners of English language. One hundred and thirty-nine (139) students were sampled for this study using the process of random sampling. Pre and post tests were taken by sampled students, frequencies and percentages were then run to analyze their overall performance as well as their performance per type of concord. Findings indicted that students had poor knowledge on the right use of subject-verb agreement. Intervention process employed by the researcher however improved their performance. Besides, five (5) teachers were sampled to collate responses on how to explore the causes of poor performance of form two students of Tema Technical School in English Concord. All teachers were of the view that the frequent speaking of English language has a direct influence on students’ performance in English concord. According to them, when students frequently use the English Language in communication, they get use to the syntax of the language and then become familiar with it. It is recommended among others that the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service should ensure that only trained teachers are engaged in teaching children starting from the primary level of education. In addition, the Ghana Education Service should supply each pupil with requisite English books to aid comprehension of the English language as a whole with extra focus on the use of notional concord. This will help prepare pupils at the pre secondary level adequately before moving on to the secondary level.