Linguistic deviations in the writings of Ghanaian public junior high school students in the Buem Municipality of Oti Region

Abstract

Abstract: In second language learning situations, learner performance is influenced by the mastery of the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these, research has shown that writing is the most difficult. To test this assertion, the researchers observed the writings of English as a Second Language (ESL) students in some junior high schools in Ghana. Specifically, the research sought to unravel some of the problems that characterise the writings of junior high school students in Ghana. This is to bring to the attention of stakeholders (teachers, headmasters, textbook writers, examiners and the education directorate) the specific problems of writing that junior high school students encounter. To achieve this objective, 200 essays of end-of-term examination scripts were purposively sampled from four schools in the Buem Municipality for a qualitative analysis. Based on the themes that emerged from the data, the deviations which reflect the writing difficulties were categorised and discussed. The deviations were grouped into orthographic, syntactic, and semantic deviations. The analysis showed that the students were unable to follow basic concord rules. It was revealed also that punctuation marks were poorly used in the writings of the students. The findings further established that junior high school students have problems selecting contextually appropriate lexical items to fill syntactic slots in their written sentences. The study suggested that teachers of English language in the junior high schools need to motivate their students to perform a lot of writing activities. It also recommended that teachers of English provide effective corrective feedback on writing tasks of their students. Keywords: deviation, orthography, punctuation, syntactic, lexical