ASSESSING STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL SKILLS IN WRITING PARAGRAPHS: THE CASE OF TWO HIGH SCHOOLS IN ADDIS KETEMA SUB-CITY, WOREDA SIX, ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to assess students’ grammatical skills in writing paragraphs. The study was conducted in Yekatit 23 and Abyssinia high schools in Addis Ababa. Descriptive case design was employed to assess their grammatical skill. The participants of the study were grade 10 sample students and English language teachers of the two schools (from Yekatit 23 and Abyssinia high schools) by using simple random sampling. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the study employed three data gathering instruments: document analysis, semi-structural interview and classroom observation. Document analysis was employed to assess students’ grammatical skill. The researcher analyzed the paragraphs written by 62 students. The semi-structural interview was held with four teachers to crosscheck the data gained from document analysis and to gather further information on students’ grammatical skill competence. Furthermore, classroom observation was made to triangulate the data gained from teachers and to gather information on teachers’ feedback in paragraph writing lessons. All the data collected using different instruments were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The researcher identified students’ grammatical skill incompetence in writing paragraphs. The main problems are related to syntactical, lexical and tense problems. The other grammatical incompetence includes subject-verb agreement difficulty, spelling errors, omission and addition of words unnecessarily and article usage problems. In addition, those grammatical difficulties emanated from various sources i.e. interlingual errors, intralingual errors and students’ lack of regular practice. Furthermore, as the researcher observed sample English language teachers, they did not give different methods of feedback in students paragraph writing tasks. They mainly focused on oral feedback in classroom. Therefore, in order to improve students’ grammatical skill in paragraph writing, students should practice writing regularly.