TENSE ERRORS IN ENGLISH ESSAYS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

This research work deals with tense errors in English essays of Secondary School. The research is to find out the type of tense errors committed by the students who have sat for their J.S.S.C.E examination.

1.2       Statement of Problem

It has been discovered that second language learners of English face some difficulties while learning the language. This is because most second language learners find it difficult to speak or write good English.

With the above in mind, this research work focuses on Tense Errors in English Essays of Secondary Schools Students This is to find out the tense errors the students make, the causes and possible suggestion of how to reduce the problems.

The work addresses the following questions:

1.         What are the errors students made?

2.         What are the types of errors?

3.         What are the causes of the errors?

4.         What are the possible solutions to these errors?

1.3       Aim and Objectives

The aim of this research is to study Tense Errors in English Essays of Secondary Schools Students

The specific objectives are;

1.         To identify the errors in the essays of the students.

2.         To classify the errors identified into types

3.         To find out and explain the possible causes of the errors.

4.         To provide solutions to the causes of the errors.

1.4       Significance of the Study

The falling standard of education generally could be attributed to poor comprehension of the English language lessons by students.

This is due to the fact that, English language serves as a bed rock for understanding other disciplines of learning S.S.C.E holders cannot fully communicate in the national language (English) and it is on this basis that this work focuses on the tenses in the students written essays.

1.5       Scope and Delimitation

This study is limited to the analysis of thirty scripts of S.S II Students of Maimuna Gwarzo in Kaduna South local government. The research is limited to found out tense errors made by students in the schools so as to provide the lasting solutions to aid teachers and students on how to guard against such problems.

1.6       Justification of the Study

This study is important as, it attempts to highlight the major tense errors committed by the students in their speaking and writing, and to provide the lasting solution on how to correct the errors.

1.7       Methodology

This section deals with how data is collected for the research work. The study covers the use of tense errors in English essays of secondary school students of some selected secondary schools in Kaduna South Local Government. The data for this work is the essay papers of thirty students of the schools.

2.0       CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1       Meaning of Tense

Adejare and Adejare, states that tense is the linguistic feature of handling time relations in speech and it differs from language to language. To them, tense is a linguistic feature usually characterized by abstraction with language specific rather than universal. According to them, traditional Grammar assumes that since there exists three time frames, there must be three tenses referring to the three time frames, thus, the past, the present and the future tense.

Tense is the form that a verb takes to show time, or an aspect expressing time relation. Hornby, (78) defines tense as “a verb form or series of verb forms used to express time relation. By time, we mean a universal non- linguistic concept which has three dimensions, the present the past and the future and time is a continuous process that is from a day to the next.

In expressing time relation, tense system is used to indicate the different time at which an action is viewed as happening.

Contributing in the same vein, Palmer, defines tense as a linguistic reference to time. This definition differs from language as it is believed that some languages have an elaborate indicator to time while others don’t.

Orji, (30) states that “traditionally, there are up to 16 tenses in English, today, however linguistics have seen through the traditional flaw, which is that traditional grammarians equated “tense” with “time.”

Every race or every generation has three (3) times namely; the present, the past and the future, so time is a universal concept.

Thus palmer’s idea of 3 forms of tense is considered the theoretical framework within which this study is made. However, other tenses as in Orji,  are incorporated as generated from the three basic tenses mentioned above.

According to Quirk and Greenbaum, (24 – 25) “that there is a choice of the past, present and future and that choice may be repeated and each new choice taking the place of the previous one at its departure.”

Leach and Svartvik, (81), state that most tenses in English have several uses, because the present tense, past tense and future tense can be used to indicate different times. To this effect therefore, students find it difficult to differentiate the term reference or verbs forms.

2.2       Types of English Tenses

Tense is a linguistics feature for handling time relation in speech and tense types differ from language to language.

According to Blake, traditional grammar works on the basis of worlds, and is to the extent world based grammar is that world from the important constituents of language which are joined together to form larger units.

However, traditional grammar recognizes a number of tenses which include present, past, future, present progressive, past progressive, past perfect, present perfect e.t.c.

The example of the tenses above

1.         The present tense: Is said to express action going on at the moment of speaking e.g.

a.         I speak English very well

b.         He smokes cigarette

c.         Sadiya plays the piano well

2.         The simple past tense: Is used to express something that happened or took place and was definitely finished/completed in the past e.g.

a.         I met the lady yesterday.

b.         The woman arrived ten minutes ago

c.         I learnt English at the University

3.         The simple future tense: This tense is used to express something that has not yet happened but will happen at sometime in the future e.g.

a.         I shall go to the lecture by 2 O’clock

b.         He will bring the book next week

c.         When will you bring my notebook?

4.         The present continuous (progressive) tense: this tense is used to express something that is happening now or at the moment of speaking or writing e.g.

a.         I am eating plantain

b.         It is raining heavily

c.         The girls are working hard

5.         The past continuous (progressive) tense: This is used to express action that took place in the past e.g

a.         I was working

b.         We were watching the football match  

c.         I was reading when the light went off.

6.         The past perfect tense: The past perfect tense is formed by the past tense of the verb ‘to have’ and the past participle e.g

a.         I have eaten my breakfast when Ali arrived.

b.         We have waited for an hour before the lecturer arrived.

7.         The present perfect tense: Many people often confuse the present perfect tense with the simple past tense. The present perfect tense is used to express action that has just been completed (perfected) and which has direct relevance to t he present ‘now’ e.g.

a.         Bello has bought a car

b.         She has finished the work

c.         They have returned from Kano.

In modern linguistics, however, the issue of progressive and perfective are seen as aspects rather than tenses by some linguists.

2.3       Error Analysis

The concept of error analysis was developed to solve the problems and inadequacies of the theory that is ascribed to Robert Lado, who worked on the basic assumption of Fries, (19).

Corder,, Jain, and Duley, formulated the theory of error analysis --- for instance, Corder, (19) says that “teachers are not impressed by what contrastive analysis has attempted to do because their practical experiences have already shown where this difficulty lies and they have not felt that the contribution of linguistics have provided them with many significant information.”

Furthermore, he shows that an analysis text has not provided the correct method of finding out errors in language learning.

Similarly Jain, reinforces the idea that “that position that the conceptual frame work for the study of errors, sources and significance based on contrastive study of contact language is fragmentary and therefore inadequate. It over looks with standing his language background”.

From the view of Corder and Jain, error analysis seems to be widely accepted in language learning. It is different from contrastive analysis where all errors are explained in term of the learner’s mother tongue (L1). Error analysis deals with individual learner’s actual errors.  

Dulay and Burst, (96) explain that while the child is learning a second (L2), he will tend to sue his native language structures in his second language speech, and where the structures in his first language (L1) and his (L2) and his (L2) differs, he will goof.”

Infact, all that these scholars are saying is error made by second language learners are mainly due to the simple fact that the structures of the target language are different from those of the first language (L1).

It is based on the views of the proponents of error analysis that the researcher found that it is good to relate it to this work.

2.4       Types of Errors

According to Corder, (45) “error may be systematic or random.” Systematic errors are those revealing a learner’s underlying knowledge of the language to date. They can also be referred to as transitional competence, while random errors are inevitably unsystematic and they are errors of performance.

Strevens, describes errors as a crucial component in our search for adequate theories of language teaching and learning.

Jowitt, States that “variation can be termed as errors, where they are due to wrong learning generally regarded by educated people. Another type of error is the idiosyncratic errors.

Those peculiar to an individual and characterizing his idiosynacratic dialect. They are theories most likely to be identified by teachers, peers, eleders, children and parents e.t.c and that are stigmatized by the Nigerian community in general. Because they impede communication, they tend to be eliminated at relatively early stages of the learning process and have chances of becoming fossilized.

Similarly, common errors are those in the written and spoken English of large numbers of learners. They are fossil errors and their fossilization is reinforced by their widespread use.

Vulgar errors are which show ignorance of fairly elementary rules and typical of them are syntactic, morphological and spelling errors. They are stigmatized by the better educated section of the English using community. These errors are learnt in primary or secondary schools as a result of the influence of inter-language norms and the fact that there are large number of people who do not complete their secondary school course or whose education stopped at ‘O’ level. Vulgar errors selected at random include the following:

a.         Wrong use or wrong omission of –S in verb forms.

example (she doesn’t feels sleepy, she need book)

b.         Wrong addition of-ly to certain adverbs (he talks fastly)

c.         Wrong spelling due to false analogy occasion in contrast to the other errors earlier mentioned, institutionalized errors are common errors except by native users or by most highly educated and experience users of English within the wider class of the educated. Such errors occur with the breaking of the rules of more advanced syntax e.g.

a.         The pluralization of uncountable nouns

b.         The mixture of the past perfect tense or phonology e.g (wrong primary account of wrong in clear accent placement), the non learning proper complementation of verbs) and so on.

According to Jowitt, “Copying” is another kind of error which is described as the syntactically redundant use of words. An example from Nigerian learner’s inter language is double marking for past tense. It may be compared with double marking for the negative.

Verb-form i.e. “didn’t know anything” (121). To some extent, many scholars have postulated different causes and types of errors, the cause of errors postulated by them are utterances, inter-lingual transfer, poor teaching method, poor materials and errors from learning process.

Characteristics of the Written Communication

There are four important skills in English. They are:

a.         Listening skill

b.         Reading skill

c.         Speaking skill

d.         Writing skill

There are many ways in which some one can communicate with his fellow men. But the two most important ways are through the spoken and the written form. The written media plays important roles in communication. This includes; Interaction through utter by distant friends secret message can be written and passed to another person by one who wants share a secret in the presence of others.

Quirk et al, (46) acknowledge that writing presumes the obscene of person to which the pieces of language is addressed. If the person is absent there is need to be more explicit than in speech.

In other words, there are certain characteristics that distinguish written communication from oral communication. Some of the characteristics are as follows:

Writing as a related process of thinking, is based on an individual, therefore, every writer has a little peculiarity to others. If a writer wants to put across a message explicitly, he has to be careful and complete with the sentences he makes in writing i.e by reading it thoroughly and reformulating the sentences where there is lapses in order to convey fully and successfully what he wants to express.

In written communication, the communicator does not use every word that comes to his mind but chooses those that best explain his message and save his space and time. In a nutshell, there is economy of word for instance; a Nigerian speaker may decide to repeat some to emphasize his points. For instance “you know” is very much repeated in conversation between two individuals. But in written communication, this is not a good usage.

Another important fact about written communication is that it permits the reader to determine his speed and sequence. The orthography does not provide the reader with information that he already possess.

The written communication is a variety of its own and it solves the problems that exist between different dialects of English for example, the spoken English in Nigeria and the American English have a great dichotomy. At times, the less educated speakers tend not to understand the American English in conversation but when it is presented in the written form; even the less educated speakers can understand the message.

In summary, written communication consists of writing, reading and interpreting message.

3.0       CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

3.1       Introduction  

This chapter deals with the methods of date collection for this research work which covers the tense errors in English essays of secondary schools students of some selected secondary schools in Kaduna South Local Government.

This chapter also serves as the basis to draw out the findings and conclusion of the study.

3.2       Sources of Data

In selecting the students for this research, the researcher considers the following:

1.         Equal educational background of selected students (SS II)

2.         The use of test as an instrument for data collection

3.         The use of narrative essay, in which the students were answer the question “How I spent my holiday”.

3.3       Method of Data Presentation and Analysis

In this section of the study, thirty answer scripts of written English essays  of secondary school students in Kaduna South Local Government is marked and analyzed, pointing out the tense errors and group them into types.

From the identified errors, tables are drawn based on the different errors committed by the students. The table presents the number and percentage of scripts with or without errors and total.