Abstract
Reading becomes interesting and enjoyable when texts are organized or structured in relation to progression in the ordering of utterance themes and their rhemes. It appears, therefore, that ESL students have problems with this aspect of writing as the intricacies and complexities of writing have been noted (Adas & Bakir, 2013), but previous studies seem to focus largely on the problems below the clause level. Therefore, focusing on 15 compositions written by form three students in the Sunyani Senior High School, the study examines ESL students’ problems in the organization of lexico-grammatical resources in text creation. Results show that ESL students face problem of proper thematic progression, which results in disunity in the development of a paragraph and incoherent sentences within paragraphs. This comes as a result of the introduction of a brand new theme and a misplaced theme. The study also shows, in terms of proper structuring of sentences that ESL students’ sentences are rather in fragment, run-on and phrases. It is suggested that teachers of English language should sensitize students to read extensively and engage students in a lot of practical exercises in writing in order to help students to improve upon their writing skills. Keywords: Essay, Writing Problems, Thematic Progression, Rheme DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/9-20-02 Publication date :October 31 st 2019
Highlights
English language gained its root in Ghana in the 16th century through the initial contact with British
4.1 Organisation of Lexico-grammatical Resources in Texts Creation This research question dwelled on the kind of problems ESL students face when putting their information together to form a text
A thorough examination of the students’ essays revealed that ESL students struggle with thematic progression which results in improper development of information in paragraphs and illogical sequence of ideas in sentences within a paragraph
Summary
English language gained its root in Ghana in the 16th century through the initial contact with British. English emerged as the language of trade, education, governance, and as cross-ethnic lingua franca (Sey, 1973). The colonial and missionary language policy saw to the consolidation of English language in the country. Of significance is the role of Reverend Denny who became school master of the Cape Coast castle in 1824. He advocated the exclusive use of English language in the school, violations of which attracted a penalty. The missionaries saw the use of English as vital in their missionary work and English was used in several Wesleyan mission schools
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