Abstract

The purpose of this study was “to assess the sentence types in written English of second cycle students of G.H.S Nkamlikum Kumba.” Data was collected through questionnaires and students’ essays and observations were presented in simple tables that were being analyzed.

Findings proved that a majority of second cycle students couldn’t correctly write sentences by structure. Recommendations were made that teachers should put more efforts into examining students’ essays and lay emphasis on teaching punctuation and spelling errors in order to reduce errors made by students.

And students should make a conscious effort to read more grammar textbooks handling sentence types by structure to perfect their mastery.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

An oral or written communication is made up of one or more units called sentences. In writing the beginning and end of a sentence are indicated respectively by a capital letter and by a full stop, or a note of exclamation or interrogation.

In speaking, the beginning and the end of a sentence are usually marked off from any proceeding or following sentence by a pause, the intonation, especially at the end of a sentence often contributing to the effect.

A sentence may consist of one or more words. Examples of one-word sentences are exclama­tions as Thanks! – Brother! -What! – Good!- Imperatives such as Stop! – Look! And vocatives such as mother! – Jack (Hallo) used the vocatives, to draw a person’s attention).

One-word sentences are as a rule intelligible only in connection with a particular situation or with a statement male (or a question asked) in another sentence (usually by another speaker).

Sentence types are the categories to which a sentence is classified. In terms of function, we have declarative sentences, interrogative, imperative sentence and exclamatory sentence while in terms of structure we have a simple sentence, compound-complex sentence.

Sentence structure has always been the thickest part of almost every paper. Should I put this sentence here? Should I put this sentence there? Is this actually a good sentence? The list of questions goes on, especially when writing about the different types of sentences because the wrong types of Sentences placed somewhere can minimize part of your paper that you may have felt strongly about.

So when using sentence types in essays, the focus is placed on grammar and punctuation for they provide us with the framework for clearly written expressions of our ideas.

Description of the Area of Research

This study will be carried out precisely at G.H.S Nkamlikum Kumba. My focus on this research will be finding out if second cycle students can write a variety of sentence types in their essays.

This study seeks to assess second cycle students’ in G.H.S Nkamlikum Kumba sentence types in written English of their essays and to find out the problems they face in using the various sentence types in writing.

Definition of Terms

Assessing

The Oxford Dictionary (2010:74) defines assessing as, to give an opinion or judgement about something or somebody that has been thought about carefully.

Sentence

The Cambridge Dictionary (2013:1404) defines a sentence as a group of words usually containing a verb, which expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.

Written English

Nordquist (2017:119) defines written English as the way in which the English language is translated through a conventional system, graphic signs or letters.

Statement of Problem

It has been observed that second cycle students face difficulties in writing a correct sentence as well as use them effectively in their essays.

Objectives

This research set out to find out the problem faced by students of the second cycle in using the various sentence types as well as examine the major areas of such challenges.

Research Questions

What are the problems faced by students of the second cycle in the writing of sentence types in written English?

What challenges do students encounter with the inconsistencies found in their sentence types when writing their essays?