An Error Analysis of the English Concord of Secondary School Students
ABSTRACT
The English sentence has a fairly strict word order and the elements that make up a sentence must be in concord, otherwise, the linear sequence becomes ungrammatical. This study investigated the degree of competence on concord in English attained by the senior secondary class three students in Onitsha North Local Government Area of Anambra State. The need for the work was underscored by the crucial role played by the English language in Nigerian education. The finding of the study would be relevant in English language learning and pedagogy. A simple survey research design was adopted for the study and the subjects of the study comprised five hundred students from five secondary schools in Onitsha North Local Government Area of Anambra State. One hundred objective questions set on different types of concord were used as test instruments. The subjects‟ errors were classified and analyzed using a simple percentage and arithmetic mean. A standard mean of 75 and above was used as an indication of the mastery of the rules of concord. The finding of the research revealed that the subjects have not mastered the rules guiding different types of concord. They were unable to dictate concord errors caused by shifts in the construction of elements of sentences. The causes of concord errors were more intralingual than interlingual. The implications of the finding in the teaching and learning of English were discussed and suggestions for improvement made
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Background of the Study
Nigeria is a multilingual country with the English language as the key medium of communication. The language is used in politics, government administration, law, mass media, commerce and education. Consequently, every facet of the country‟s life depends largely on the English language. To the majority of Nigerians, the yardstick for measuring the degree of one‟s level of educational attainment is one‟s performance in the English language. The first education ordinance of 1882 recognized only the English language as the language of instruction. Since then, the language has been „the barometer with which the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of our school curricular are measured‟ (Eyisi 3). Poor performance in the language leads to poor performance in other subjects.
The new National Policy on Education, sections four and five, does not only recommend the English language as the language of instruction from the fourth year of primary education, it is also a compulsory subject in secondary and tertiary levels of education in Nigeria. Hence, a credit pass in English at senior secondary school certificate or general certificate O‟ level examination is a prerequisite for admission into various tertiary institutions in the country. Regrettably, the mastery of this very important language is confronted with a lot of challenges, such as a dearth of sufficiently qualified teachers of English, lack of role models, negative attitude to the learning of the language, poor reading culture and above all, inadequate exposure to the intricacy of the grammar of the language as well as faulty application of grammatical rules. Eyisi affirms that: … although the available position of English in the national life is waxing stronger than it has been, the spoken and written quality of the language in Nigeria, as perceived by the expert judges have deteriorated to a drastic level (10).
To buttress this assertion, the WAEC Chief Examiners Reports of 2000, 2002 and 2004 respectively, revealed that candidates‟ responses to the examination questions were rather disappointing, in spite of the fact that the questions were clear. They stated that the candidates‟ short-comings were their inability to express ideas correctly in English and abuse of basic rules of grammar. It is also an incontestable fact that good writing stems from adequate familiarity with the grammatical components of a language. Grammar in its simplest sense is „the study of how a language works‟ (Charpman 155).
What this means specifically is that grammar is the study of the systems and patterns which operate in a language to give meaning to an utterance. These acceptable systems and patterns are believed to constitute the rules of language. These rules govern the sounds, words, sentences and other elements, as well as their combination and interpretation. (Encyclopedia Britannica 410) Chomsky confirms „…that a fully adequate grammar must assign to each of an infinite range of sentences, a structural pattern indicating how this sentence is to be understood by the ideal speaker-hearer‟ (4 – 5).
An Error Analysis of the English Concord of Secondary School Students
In English grammar, there are rules, which govern variations in the form of words, variation in the word order and combination of phonemes. The phonology of English, for instance, permits the combination of certain phonemes in a particular sequence to form acceptable patterns. Let us consider the letters „p‟, „a‟, „t‟, when in combination English words such as „pat‟, „tap‟ and „apt‟ are realized but „atp‟ on possible combination is not permissible in the language. In the same vein, „books‟ is the plural of „book‟, but „mans‟ is not accepted as the plural of „man‟. The same holds for word order, which accounts for acceptability and unacceptability of the following utterances: I want oranges. * Want oranges I. Ngozi has a pen. * Ngozi have a pen.
Evidently, any deviation from the established and acceptable norm is termed deviant or ungrammatical represented with asterisks in the above utterances. The rules of grammar derive from and encompass the various parts of speech that constitute the elements of a sentence. In the English language, the parts of speech, according to Quirk and Greenbaum (18) can be exemplified as follows: (a) noun – John, room, answer, play adjective – happy, steady, new, large, round adverb – steadily, completely, really, very, then verb – search, grow, play, be, have, do (b) article – the, a, a demonstrative – that, this prepositions – of, at, in, without, in spite of conjunction – and, that, when, although These units of speech are not arranged haphazardly in a sentence.
Their occurrence and positions in a sentence must be guided by the syntax of the language. A particular part of speech must be in agreement with another part of speech for them to co-occur in a sentence. This is known as concord. Quirk et al in Onuigbo define concord as „a relationship between two grammatical elements such that if one of them selects a given feature, the other has to have the same feature‟. (96)
This kind of relationship exists between the subject and the verb in a sentence so that if the subject contains a plural feature, the verb must have the same feature in order to make the sentence grammatically acceptable. This kind of concord between the subject and the verb on the basis of number is technically referred to as grammatical concord as exemplified in the following sentences: My brother is here. My brothers are here. In the first sentence, the singular subject, „my brother‟ selects the singular verb, „is‟ while in the second sentence, the plural verb, „are‟ must co-occur with a plural subject, „My brothers‟ for acceptability of the sentence. Quirk and Greenbaum (176) explain that grammatical concord is the most important concord in English. Other patterns of agreement or concord are subject-Complement Concord; Pronoun-Antecedent Concord, Concord of Person, Subject-Object Concord, Concord with Correlatives, Law of Proximity, and Notional Concord.
An Error Analysis of the English Concord of Secondary School Students
1.2 Statement of the Problem The poor performance of Nigerian students in the English language is a matter that calls for concern. The failure in English is mainly attributable to their poor knowledge of the basic rules of grammar.
The knowledge of the rules of concord in English grammar is very necessary if one is to speak and write good English. The study of this aspect of grammar does not only highlight the subject-verb relationship but equally brings to the fore, the acceptable relationship of some other elements in a sentence. Perhaps, this informs its regular appearance in the scheme of work at primary and secondary school levels of education. It is also a common feature in virtually every grammar textbook. The assumption, therefore, is that students at the senior secondary school level should be conversant with the agreement of sentence elements, having been exposed to the rules of concord early enough. However, the reverse is the case.
Previous studies in error analysis revealed that errors of concord are one of the most commonest errors made by learners of English as a second language. This revelation calls for more serious attention to error analysis. It is pertinent to note that a lot of work has been done on error analysis but these are general investigations into the English language error patterns. Much work has not been done on the specific areas of the language such as concord errors. There is a need to streamline and study these specific error patterns for more effective teaching and learning. The problem of this study, therefore, is to ascertain the senior secondary school class 3 students‟ competence on concord in the English language.
An Error Analysis of the English Concord of Secondary School Students
1.3 Aims and Objectives The importance of grammar in the learning of any language can never be over-emphasized. The grammar of a language must be thoroughly mastered before one can use it with some degree of accuracy and confidence. A lucid, and convincing piece of writing as a matter of necessity, must be grammatical for the complete acceptability of such writing as a standard form. „To develop the needed competence and to ensure a high level of performance, one has to internalize the structure of the language to the point of automaticity‟ (Ubahakwe 46).
The specific topic of this study is to find out, through multiple-choice objective testing, the degree of competence in concord attained by the subjects of the study. It is a cognitive test of language competence. This is premised on the fact that competence is the sole aim of language learning and teaching. Corder explained that competence could be tested by the learner‟s ability to distinguish between grammatically acceptable or non–acceptable sentences, recognize sentence relationships and also paraphrase sentences (91 – 97).
The choice of the top class of the secondary education, that is, SS3 is appropriate since the students are expected to have attained a level of competence in the English language. The specific competence sought in the test is the knowledge of the rules of grammatical concord, subject complement concord, pronoun-antecedent concord, concord of person, subject-object concord, and concord with correlatives. Concord of proximity and notional concord are excluded in the study because they do not provide reliable guidance as well as stable grammatical rules.
To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher adopts error analysis which Candaline calls „a chief means of both assessing the pupil‟s learning in general and of the degree of match between his learning „syllabus‟ and the teacher‟s teaching one‟ (Agamah et al 6).
Error analysis, therefore, provides „corrective feedback to general linguistics and to language learners theory‟ (Jain 8). Consequently, error analysis of the selected subjects‟ performance will give an insight into the students‟ weaknesses and strengths in the rules of concord. This will be of great help in remedial teaching and curriculum designing.
An Error Analysis of the English Concord of Secondary School Students