CROWTHER JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

The teaching and learning of English as a second language in Nigeria is introduced to pupils at ages five to six or even less for those that attend nursery schools. Thus, in the process of acquiring English Language, learners are bound to make errors. This research analyzed the frequency of grammatical errors in the essays written by pupils in junior secondary schools in Awka South local government area, Anambra State. Specifically, the study analyses the errors occurring in the use English grammar by pupils, classifying the errors, determining their frequency levels and their sources. The population of the study consists of JSS 1 junior secondary school pupils in Awka South local government Area of Anambra state. The population comprised of six (6) public junior secondary schools in Awka South local government area which formed the sample frame for the study. The descriptive survey design was employed to study the research problems in the study location. The study population consists of 853 pupils. Out of this number, 505 pupils were purposively sampled for the purpose of this study. Each of the pupils was asked to write an essay, and the scripts were marked to identify all grammatical errors made by the pupils. It turns out that, out of 505 scripts that were marked, 36% of the pupils were not able to communicate their thoughts meaningfully. Out of the 500 comprehensible scripts the following errors were identified and their frequencies: wrong use of tense 22%, errors in spelling 13%, errors in the choice of words 10%, wrong use of prepositions 7%, verb addition errors 2%, preposition addition errors 6%, pronoun addition, subject-verb agreement errors, wrong use of pronouns, plural and verb omission errors all received 7% each. The study also found that a good number of errors discovered from pupils’ writings were intralingua errors. Based on results of the findings of this research; the study recommends that the Federal Government, key stakeholders in private sector and Non governmental organizations should organize spelling competitions to help encourage and motivate these pupils toward serious and steadfast learning. If there’s already been one; enough public awareness should be put in place to embolden and make sure students’ participation in such competition is worth it such as organizing and awarding abroad scholarships to emerging winners as practiced in other West African countries.

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