Tags in Written Complex Sentences of Selected Undergraduate Students of English for Academic Purposes: Some Pedagogical Implications

Ambrose Ochigbo Adaje, Ibrahim Ahmad Shehu

Abstract

The study assesses the competence of some selected undergraduate students of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in the use of questions, directives, statements and exclamation tags in communication. The structural grammar model description of patterns and uses of the four tags is employed to design a proficiency assessment test instrument and to discriminate malformed tags in the students` written complex sentences. The study’s subjects are fifty-nine first-year EAP students of the University of Agriculture Makurdi, Nigeria. Frequency, percentage and mean statistics are used for data analysis and the results show that the students are incompetent in the use of the question, directive, statement and exclamation tags in English; this implies that some EAP students are incapable of using tags correctly in interactive English. As a remedy to the linguistic inadequacy, tags should be included in the use of English curriculum at the university level in Nigeria

Keywords

English grammar usage, tags, patterns, EAP students, deficiencies.

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References

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