Abstract:
This study is an attempt to investigate punctuation errors made by Sudanese secondary school students .The researcher hypothesizes that students have difficulty in using punctuation marks effectively in their writing. To achieve this goal the researcher used a writing test that includes five different types of questions examining the uses of English punctuation marks for collecting data. The test is administered to sixty third year students at Abdel Muniem Hassona Secondary School-Khartoum State. Also Thirty English Language teachers from secondary schools at Khartoum locality participated in a questionnaire to investigate the teaching of punctuation marks and their attitudes towards them.
The findings of this study showed that the majority of the students confuse the use of some punctuation marks such as the colon, semi-colon, exclamation marks and the comma, due to the poor and inadequate punctuation marks activities presented in the textbooks, in addition to the lack of authentic materials in teaching the punctuation marks in SPINE series and the little emphasis given to the teaching of the punctuation marks.
The researcher recommends that more attention should be paid to this very important element in writing. Teachers should also put more emphasis on teaching those problematic punctuation marks through providing more examples and exercises that further reinforce the uses of the English punctuation marks.
