Investigating the Nature and Prevalence of Writing Difficulties among Learners at Ninth Grade: A Case of Teji Senior Secondary School
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Date
2024-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The general objective of the study was to investigate the nature and prevalence of writing difficulties among learners at ninth grade of Teji Senior Secondary School. Descriptive study research design was employed to address the difficulties. In this study mixed research method was used. The researcher targeted grade 9 students and English language teachers who are teaching in grade 9 at Teji Senior Secondary School. 150 sample students were taken using systematic sampling technique and five English language teachers using availability sampling method. In order to achieve the study employed, four data gathering tools were observation, questionnaire, document analysis, and interview. The observation used to explore how students practice paragraph writing and how teachers assist students to solve writing difficulties. Open and closed questionnaires used to find out students’ challenges in writing. Document analysis was employed to identify features of students’ challenges in writing paragraphs. Furthermore, interview was employed to find out students’ difficulties in practice writing paragraphs. All data collected using different tools were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The study identified the major factors affecting the students writing skills.. These are challenges of awareness parts of paragraph, steps paragraph writing and challenges of organization, unity, capitalization, punctuation, spelling and coherence. Therefore, in order to avoid students’ challenges in practice writing paragraphs, EFL teachers’ should engage students in various writing activities give them different sentence, paragraph and simple essay writing tasks, feedback and also motivate learners.