Investigating Difficulties Encountering Secondary School Students in Writing Composition

Abstract

This study aims at investigating difficulties encountering students of high secondary schools in Khartoum North Locality, namely third year, when writing composition. Most students have problems in writing composition such as grammatical, spelling, punctuation mistakes and lack of sufficient vocabulary. Also the interference of their mother tongue in writing composition. In addition, the dropping out of books of literature from the components of secondary school curriculum has led to further decline and deterioration of writing skills. The researcher adopted the descriptive analytical method. A questionnaire for teachers and a test for students in Khartoum North locality were used to collect data. The sample comprised 30 teachers and 20 students from Model Schools and 20 students from Government or Geographical Schools. The study came up with some results such asthe majority of teachers of English language are not well trained to teach writing composition and they are not exposed to training workshops on teaching writing composition. Also there is a geat difference between the level of English language of Model Secondary Schools students and Governmental School students. The study recommends that: teachers should raise students’ awareness of the importance of writing composition, writing composition should be done according toa fixed timetable not let to teachers’ initiatives and supervisors should follow up the rate of composition writing throughout the year and special attention should be paid to individual differences among students. Teachers of English language should have sessions of in service training.