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Linguistic difficulties encountered by secondary four Tamil students in their Tamil compositions
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Type
Thesis
Author
Ramiah Kalimuthu
Supervisor
Thinnappan, S. P.
Abstract
The objective of this exploratory study was to identify the various linguistic difficulties encountered by secondary four Tamil students in the writing of their Tamil compositions. Errors made in such linguistic components as phonology, morphology, morphophonemics, syntax, semantics, graphemics and vocabulary were considered manifestations of linguistic difficulties and were investigated. Influence from spoken Tamil and interference from first language English, Malay and Malayalam were also looked into. The students were given three compositions to write for three consecutive weeks and their errors were analysed. The rationale for giving three compositions was to minimise and avoidance strategy that the students might employ.
The sample for this study was 180 secondary four express stream students from all the 9 Tamil secondary centres spread throughout Singapore. This sample was not only representative of a cross-section of the Tamil students in secondary schools but also represented about one third of the total secondary four express Tamil student population in Singapore.
Analysis of data revealed that 17,158 errors were made out of 108,000 words written which meant that 15.88 errors were made for every 100 words. This included both interference and non-interference errors.
The non-interference or developmental errors were dominant (96.18 percent) while the interference errors were insignificant with 3.82 percent. Thus the writer's hypothesis that most of the errors were made because of difficulties within the target language rather than interference from other languages appeared to be proven. Of the developmental errors (non-interference errors) 37.1% were morphophonemic errors, 23.67% phonological errors, 10.52% graphemic errors, 7.88% vocabulary errors, 7.13% syntactic errors, 6.69% morphological errors, 2.05% errors due to influence of the spoken language and 1.14% semantic errors. Of the interference errors, 3.41% were English interference errors, 0.26% Malay interference errors and 0.15% Malayalam interference errors.
The writing abilities of the students ranged very widely. Although they were in the same express stream their proficiency in Tamil varied. There were students who were very proficient in Tamil but a number of them were still making many errors.
A remedial programme were proposed on the basis of the findings. From the pedagogical point of view, a guided writing programme appeared to be most useful. Different approaches to error correction giving more emphasis to self-correction and peer correction were also suggested. It is hoped the remedial measures suggested here will help the Tamil teachers carry out their task more effectively and successfully in developing the linguistic competence of the Tamil students in secondary schools.
It is also hoped that this study will help the curriculum developers and textbook writers to review the syllabus and textbooks, bearing in mind the various errors identified in this exploratory study.
The sample for this study was 180 secondary four express stream students from all the 9 Tamil secondary centres spread throughout Singapore. This sample was not only representative of a cross-section of the Tamil students in secondary schools but also represented about one third of the total secondary four express Tamil student population in Singapore.
Analysis of data revealed that 17,158 errors were made out of 108,000 words written which meant that 15.88 errors were made for every 100 words. This included both interference and non-interference errors.
The non-interference or developmental errors were dominant (96.18 percent) while the interference errors were insignificant with 3.82 percent. Thus the writer's hypothesis that most of the errors were made because of difficulties within the target language rather than interference from other languages appeared to be proven. Of the developmental errors (non-interference errors) 37.1% were morphophonemic errors, 23.67% phonological errors, 10.52% graphemic errors, 7.88% vocabulary errors, 7.13% syntactic errors, 6.69% morphological errors, 2.05% errors due to influence of the spoken language and 1.14% semantic errors. Of the interference errors, 3.41% were English interference errors, 0.26% Malay interference errors and 0.15% Malayalam interference errors.
The writing abilities of the students ranged very widely. Although they were in the same express stream their proficiency in Tamil varied. There were students who were very proficient in Tamil but a number of them were still making many errors.
A remedial programme were proposed on the basis of the findings. From the pedagogical point of view, a guided writing programme appeared to be most useful. Different approaches to error correction giving more emphasis to self-correction and peer correction were also suggested. It is hoped the remedial measures suggested here will help the Tamil teachers carry out their task more effectively and successfully in developing the linguistic competence of the Tamil students in secondary schools.
It is also hoped that this study will help the curriculum developers and textbook writers to review the syllabus and textbooks, bearing in mind the various errors identified in this exploratory study.
Date Issued
1987
Call Number
PL4759 Ram
Date Submitted
1987