Evaluating Pragmatic Competence in Nigerian Undergraduates’ Language Errors within Descriptive ESL Writing

Abstract

This study investigates the level of pragmatic competence for ESL writing skills among Nigerian undergraduates. Methodologically, it adopts descriptive research design within the explanatory framework of the QUAN-Qual model. The instruments used are descriptive essay text and focus group interview questions. In writing the descriptive essays, a total of 402 undergraduates' participated through convenience sampling. Quantitatively, an independent samples t-test was carried out. The results indicated the females required putting more efforts towards improving their pragmatic competence in the ESL writing as they achieved a higher means for language errors, compared to that of the males. Moreover, the ttest value demonstrated that the females lacked skills in the pragmatic skills of mechanical structure, grammatical function, and sentence structures and this made them commit more language errors. Qualitatively, a focus group interview was held randomly with 12 participants out of the 402 undergraduates through purposive sampling. The results of the interview sessions revealed novelties of culture-specific, learning feasibility and the academic discourse as the key elements that constraint most of the Nigerian undergraduates ESL writing skills, particularly the females. Therefore, this study revealed strong implications on how best to develop Nigerian learners' pragmatic competence in ESL writing skills.

An Analysis of Common Errors in ESL Descriptive Writing among Chinese Private School Students in Malaysia

“…The errors made by students in this area include errors in punctuation and capitalization. These findings contradict with the results by Muhammad and Subadrah (2017) that indicated that female students in Nigeria commit more errors in mechanics than their male counterparts, but supports the findings by Tesfaye (2004) that male students made more errors in punctuation and capitalization.…”

“…Errors in this area are found in word form, articles, prepositions and conjunctions. These findings conform to the findings by Furtina et al (2016) that female students made less grammatical errors than male students in writing, but contradict the findings by Muhammad and Subadrah (2017) that female students in Nigeria made more grammatical errors than their male counterparts.…”

“…The findings of the current study have revealed that students make errors in spelling, mechanics, grammar, coherence, structure and lexical items in descriptive essay writing. These types of errors have been identified in ESL essay writing in several studies, such as those by Gedion et al (2016) and Botley and Dillah (2016) who identified errors in spelling; Mohammed (2014) and Muhammad and Subadrah (2017) teacher interviewed in this study also agreed that her students made these types of errors in their ESL essay writing.…”

“…One of the findings revealed that the female students outperformed their male counterparts in the writing tests. Muhammad and Subadrah (2017) also did a study to investigate the level of pragmatic competence in the ESL writing skills of a group of Nigerian undergraduate students. They took the approach of looking into the students" errors in mechanics, grammar and sentence structures.…”

Lecturers’ and Students’ Perception on Learning Model of Contextual-Based Academic Writing

“…In fact, it was found that there were still many problems students experienced in academic writing activities. Muhammad said the majority of the learners' face significant challenges in the areas of mechanical, grammatical, and sentence formations [12]. In line with this opinion, Akhadiah [13] says that many students are difficult in using written language.…”