Junior secondary school students' intralingual errors in essays written in French language

S.M Umoh,P.C.N Ezenwa

doi:10.4314/gjedr.v19i2.3

Abstract

This study set out to identify students’ intralingual errors in the essays written in French. The study adopted the ex-post facto design, using the content analysis technique. The population comprised 2,893 copies of descriptive essays written in French Language by year 3 junior secondary school students in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2015, 2016 and 2017 in Imo State. The sample of 228 essays was selected through stratified, purposive and proportionate random sampling techniques. The three instruments for the study were the question papers on French Language, the students’ answer scripts and a researcher-designed Checklist of Intralingual Errors for Learning French (CIELF). The data from the error analysis were subjected to analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and the research question that guided the study was answered in percentages. The results showed that the students committed eight intralingual errors, which include overgeneralization, omission, addition, simplification of parts of speech, misinformation, agreement, verb forms and mechanical errors. Part of the recommendations is for teachers of French to build language instructions on students’ prior knowledge and experiences, thereby making French languagelearning to be real and interesting to the students.

Highlights

The ability to speak French by Nigerians is hoped to enhance economic development especially in the areas of career development, tourism, cultural integration and economic enterprises
Their efforts to speak or write in French are fraught with a lot of errors, as evidenced in their performance in examinations like the end-programme examination, the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in which most students’ performance in French is not satisfactory as most students pass the language below Credit level
The question papers were developed by the Imo State Examination Development Centre (EDC), which is the department in the Imo State Ministry of Education that is charged with the conduct of examinations in the primary and junior secondary schools in the State

Summary

Introduction

The ability to speak French by Nigerians is hoped to enhance economic development especially in the areas of career development, tourism, cultural integration and economic enterprises. It is observed that students have difficulties acquiring the expected language skills in French and so are not able to communicate meaningfully in French language at the end of their junior secondary school. Their efforts to speak or write in French are fraught with a lot of errors, as evidenced in their performance in examinations like the end-programme examination, the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in which most students’ performance in French is not satisfactory as most students pass the language below Credit level.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion