Abstract:
This thesis investigated the use of transitional devices by students of Bolgatanga Girls
Senior High School. Three objectives were set for the research: to identify the kind of
transitional devices that appear in the writing of senior high school students, the
challenges that are associated with the use of transitional devices by the students and
the causes of the problems of using transitional devices by the students. T o achieve
these objectives, the researcher employed a case study approach. The researcher
employed interviews and observation of students script for the collection of the data
for the research. Essays of students were sampled for the extraction of the tran sitional
devices used by the students. The data that was obtained was analysed based on the
themes that emerged from the research questions. The findings of the study showed
that Bolgatanga Girls’ Senior High School students use transitional devices of
dif ferent categories in their writing tasks. The findings of the study revealed that the
students contextually and semantically use connective devices appropriately, which
makes their essays to achieve coherence and cohesion. It was shown by the study that
ev en though the students use the connective devices appropriately, they overuse some
of the transitional devices, while they avoid some. The study also showed that
compound connective devices are sometimes misspelt by the students by writing them
as separate words. The findings indicated that the teachers of English language place
too much emphasis on the external examination; they also employ teacher teacher-centred
methods in teaching; they do not adopt process approach to teaching transitional
devices to the stude nts and the students also fail to undertake reading task on their
own. The study recommended that teachers of English should teach transitional
devices as distinct topic and adopt a learner learner-centred approach to teaching transitional
devices to their student students.
Description:
A thesis 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 Philosophy
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
in the University of Education, Winneba.
JUNE, 2023
