Investigating poor summary writing skills among the second year students of Dadieso senior high school

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the summary writing mistakes that are made among the second year students of Dadieso Senior High in the Western North Region of Ghana. The main objectives addressed in the research were to find out the factors that account for the summary writing problems and to find out ways of addressing them. The instruments employed in this study included test, questionnaire, observation and descriptions. Findings of the study revealed that it is difficult for the second year students of Dadieso Senior High School to do summary writing effectively and this has gone a long way to affect students’ performance in English. It was evident in the study that students are unable to identify important ideas from the irrelevant ones which makes them lift a whole sentence, use figurative languages, use modifiers and embellishments, use examples and illustrations which are not supposed to be part of summary writing. It has therefore been recommended that qualified teachers should be made to teach the subject. More so, Ghana Education Service should regularly organize refresher courses in English on teaching summary writing.