INVESTIGATING ERRORS IN ENGLISH TENSE AND ASPECT IN THE WRITING OF WULUGU SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

ABSTRACT This research sought to find out the problems of tense and aspect usage among the Wulugu Senior High Schools students which are in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern region of Ghana. The study, which focused on the problems of students using appropriate tense and aspect in writing, was conducted on the students in two forms. The instrument used was observation. The study reveals that students in Wulugu Senior High School had serious problems in using correct tense when writing. Regarding when to use simple tense and when not to use these simple tense, when to use simple aspect and when not to use simple aspect was a problem in Wulugu Senior High School. Some of the identified causes of these problems include the wholesale promotion of students by the policy makers irrespective of performance, students’ inability to match perfectives, differentiate between a tense and an aspect and teachers inability to use appropriate method to teach tense and aspects contributed to students poor academic performance in the examination. Suggested strategies to these problems include the communicative approach to language teaching, use of language games, process writing and students centered activities among others will help improve students’ composition writing skills in the classrooms.