CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 1.0 Introduction

English is an international language and in demand today. English is so far the most widely used language around the world. There are some factors that cause students to have difficulties in learning vocabulary, the written form is different from the spoken in English, the number of words that a student should be able to learn is exceedingly large. Students face difficulties in spelling because many words in English language have different spellings but similar pronunciation for example the word “pear” and the word “pair” have the same pronunciation but different spellings. Due to the lack of knowledge of grammatical category rules, the second language learner’s makes errors at any point, and this errors or problems are numerous in the grammatical category of nouns. This study is focused on analysing the problems faced by examinatio class students in the use of  of English nouns in essay and directed writing. The classification of English nouns is as diverse and varied as there English nouns. Students face problems in learning English nouns mainly due to the lack of adequate knowledge of the diverse classes of nouns,  alongside other difficulties such as those in syntactic plural and gender pronoun verb concord.

A noun is regarded as one of the 9 groups of parts of speech, a pronoun is considered a subpart of a noun, and the importance of nouns and pronouns in the English language is evident. Communication in the English language is not possible without the acquisition and learning of English nouns. Every word belongs to a class of words in which that class is called grammatical category, the following are the 9 grammatical categories, namely; nouns, verbs, djectives, adverbs, prepositions, determiners, coordinators, subordinators, demonstratives.

For learners it is very important to know a word’s grammatical category before it’s meaning for the correct use of the word in language. As a grammartical category, nouns are used to refer to people (boy) objects (ball) creatures (dog) place (school) qualities (roughness) phenomena (earthquake) and abstract which is idea (love) . English language nouns are differentiated as:.

1. a) Common nouns: it has a group of referents
2. b) Proper nouns: nouns of unique entity and has one referent.
3. c) Countable nouns : These are the common nouns that have a plural form and can be used in the numerals and quantifiers (three, four, many) and they can take the place of an indefinite article, such nouns can be divided into two; individual – a pen- pens, and collective a team -teams .

Common errors in the use of Nouns

One of such errors is the common error in the use of the possessive case.The possessive case emerges as yet another problem area to most learners of English. In most cases the learner of English forgets the rule governing the possessive case. In other instances the sound of letter “s” in a word is taken to be possessive case. In errors of this nature, the learner of English fails to apply the rule that governs the possessive case. Consider these examples from the exercises of some learners of English.

1 Errors where the rule  is ignored

(a) “….in conformity with Christ tradition”

Don’t say ..”in conformity with Christ tradition”

Say…”in conformity with Christ’s tradition.

 Most learners of English display much ignorance in the use of nouns. In a number of instances the learners of English use the following with reckless abandon.

  Commentary

In this extract the word “dead” is an adjective which the learner of English uses in the place of a noun (death). This is what to say: He is ready to bear the circumstances even up to his death.

Extract 9

“Antigone chooses to die because of her death brother”

Commentary

 In extract 9 the word “death” is a noun which the learner of English uses in the place of an adjective. This is what to say: Antigone chooses to die because of her dead brother.

In all the extracts, the student’s knowledge of the English noun is at its lowest. In other words, to use a noun as an adjective, as the above extract reveals means that scant attention is paid to the study of nouns in particular and parts of speech in general.

  To redress this situation the students in form one, two and three in secondary schools must be stepped in all the nine parts of speech.These exercises on the information of nouns are an attempt to find a solution to this disturbing problem

 1.1 Statement of problem

 The second language learners should know the grammatical categories of the target language, the reason is that these grammatical category decide the placement of the grammatical category such as nouns, verbs in the clause or sentence . Due to the lack of knowledge learners  make errors at any stage and these errors or problems are numerous in the grammatical category of nouns. Students in final year classes who sit in for the final exams in secondary-high school perform poorly in essay and directed writing due to the fact that they don’t know how to identify and determine the different noun types, such as a proper noun, abstract noun, and a common noun in a sentence. Some even have low grades despite the teaching by the teachers or guidance.   The problem, therefore is that the English language is considered to some students difficult because they don’t know how to identify nouns and use them correctly to form good sentences. This results to poor performance and makes some of the students begin to nurture hatred for the subject.

1:2 Aim of the study

The aim of this essay is to investigate the difficulties faced by students in using English nouns in essay and directed writing, and to propose strategies to minimise the difficulties

1.3   Objectives of the study

– To identify and analyse the difficulties that students face in using English nouns in essay and directed writing.

– To analyse the difficulties faced by students in using English nouns in essay and directed writing.

– To propose strategies to minimise the difficulties that students face in using English nouns in essay and directed writing.

1.4 Research Questions

– What are the difficulties that students face while using English nouns in essay and directed writing?

– How can one analyse the difficulties faced by students in using English nouns in essay and directed writing?

– What are some strategies to minimise the difficulties that students face in using English nouns in essay and directed writing?