Assessment of Simple Past and Past Participle Inflections of Irregular Verbs in the Written English of First-year Students of the University of Agriculture, Makurdi

Ambrose Ochigbo Adaje, Anastasia Vereshe Ikyase

Abstract

The study assesses simple past and past participle inflections of irregular verbs in the English usage of first-year students of English for academic purposes (EAP) at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi. The structural grammar model ( Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik, 2007; Pullum & Huddleston, 2002) is adopted to describe the simple past and past participle inflections of irregular verbs in English; it is, also, used to construct a proficiency assessment research instrument, tagged: Inflections of Irregular Verbs in English, which contains thirty-five Standard English sentences with contexts that require the use of the simple past and the past participle forms of verbs, sampled from the seven classes of irregular verbs. Fifty-eight study subjects were randomized from a first-year EAP lecture group. The results of data analysis, using frequency, percentage and mean scores, prove that the students have inadequate knowledge of the simple past and the past participle inflections of irregular verbs: they are incapable of using the simple past forms of rend, saw, flee, stride, slay, shut, spit, grind, speed, heave, and spring in English; they are also unable to utilize the past participles of bend, strew, sew, swell, bereave, cleave, tread, lie, split, spread, cost, fling, swing, string, ring, shrink and swim in English. The study recommends constant drills of EAP students on the simple past and the past participle forms of the two hundred and fifty English irregular verbs, through sentence construction and essay writing tasks.

Keywords

Irregular verbs inflections, the simple past forms, the past participle forms, EAP students, inadequate knowledge

Full Text:

PDF

References

Adekemi, B. T. (2021). Appraisal of Common Errors is Spoken and Written English of 400 level students of Gombe State University. International Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences vol.22 No.4.

Amadi, S. C. (2018) Learning the English Passive Voice Difficulties, Learning Strategies of Igbo ESL Learners and Pedagogical Implications International Journal of English and Literature. Literature vol. 9(5), pp.50-62, htttp://www.academicjournals.org//JEL.

Azar, B. S. (2003). Fundamentals of English Grammar. New York: Pearson

Biber, D., Conrad, S and Leech, G. (2003). Student’s grammar of spoken and written English. England: Pearson Education Limited

Carter, R. and McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, R. (2008). The study of second language acquisition: Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R. and Barkhuizen, G. (2005). Analysing Learner Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Foley, M & Hall, D (2008). Advanced Learners’ Grammar. England: Pearson Education Limited

Greenbaum, S. (1996). The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Huddleston, R & Pullum, G.K (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lester, M., Franklin, D. & Yokota, T. (2010). English Irregular Verbs: A Reference for Beginning to Advanced ESL Students. New York: McGraw Hill

McKay, S.L (2008). Researching Second Language classrooms. New Jersey. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Nwuba, C. N. (2010). The English irregular verbs: implications for second language learners. Unpublished M.A thesis, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech and Svartvik, J. (2007). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Edinburgh Pearson Education Limited

Mansur, U. (2015). Factors contributing to lexical verbs errors in foundation students. Essay writing at a tertiary education institution in Nigeria. An unpublished M.E.D (TESL) Thesis Universiti Putra, Malaysia.

Vince, M. (2003). English Grammar & Vocabulary. New York: Macmillan Publishers Limited

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.