STUDENTS` PARAGRAPH WRITING PROBLEMS: THE CASE OF GRADE 9 STUDENTS OF ANDINET SECONDARY SCHOOL, ASSELA TOWN.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze student’s paragraph writing problems at Andient secondary school in Assela Town .To meet the stated objective, systematic random sampling technique was used to determine the target group from grade nine classrooms. The data were collected using questionnaire, interviews and text analysis. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The finding of this study shows the major problems are related to the student’s difficulty to write paragraphs that can fulfill the quality of good paragraph such, as organization, unity and adequacy. All data collected from the three instruments were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in integrative way. The researcher identified the major problems students have in paragraph writing. The first problems are related to the three parts of paragraph in which students have a problem of identifying these parts and cannot write according to it. The other problems are related to students` difficulty to write paragraphs that can fulfill the quality of good paragraph such as organization, unity and adequacy. Furthermore, spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice and capitalization are the other most serious problems students encounter. In addition, factors that affect students‟ paragraph writing were divided into three sub-headings. These are students` related factors, teacher related factors and writing resource related factors. Student related factors include lack of practice, lack of vocabulary, anxiety, lack of confidence, carelessness and attitude. Furthermore, spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice and capitalization are the other most series problems encounter. As a result of these, unless the students are given feedback to what they write they may not understand their positional and their problems. Therefore, English language teachers should give their students appropriate feedback and motivation in need.