An analysis of the grammatical errors of Igbo-Speaking graduates’ written English: implications for teaching

Abstract

The study sought to determine errors made by students undergoing the Professional Diploma in Education programme in the institution. This study stemmed from the fact that the current dominant medium of accessing knowledge globally is the English language. Unfortunately, the reality in Nigeria is that students’ performance in English is very poor, in spite of its being the country’s official language and the most regularly taught subject in the curriculum. Presently, the linguistic situation in Nigeria is that many graduates leave the universities without the requisite communicative skills in both the indigenous language (L₁) and the English Language (L₂). In this study, document analysis was done to detect the grammatical errors in these students’ written essays in English. The errors were further classified based on their types and sources and analysed using simple percentages. The results of the analysis showed that the dominant errors were in the areas of spelling, tense, concord, use of prepositions, punctuation, and plural and singular forms. Based on these findings, recommendations were made and they include the restructuring of the English language teacher, education curriculum to integrate contrastive analysis and error analysis as well as the use of interactive strategies in teaching to enhance practice.

Keywords: Analysis, Grammatical errors, Igbo speaking graduates, Written English