Factors Associated with Errors in English Simple-Sentence Writing: A Case Study of Grade 12 Students at Nampula Secondary School

This article derives from a monograph that investigated the factors affecting the incorrect writing of simple sentence structures by 12th-grade day-shift students at Nampula Secondary School. The overall aim was to identify the factors that lead students to write simple sentences incorrectly in English. Eighty-seven subjects took part in this descriptive, single-site study, namely 85 students (45 male and 40 female) from four 12th-grade classes and 2 English teachers. A pragmatic paradigm and a mixed-methods approach were adopted, using a written test, semi-structured interviews and lesson observation as data-collection instruments. Performance on the written test was weak and declined with structural complexity: 42.4% of students produced correct declarative sentences, versus 24.7% for negative declaratives, 20.0% for interrogatives and 10.6% for negative interrogatives. Interviews and classroom observation indicated infrequent explicit teaching of simple-sentence structure (5.5% of coded intervals) relative to unsystematic error correction (55.5%). These patterns are associated with, and are interpreted here in relation to, limited grammatical instruction, limited exposure to English outside the classroom, and low reported motivation, in a context where teachers reported not addressing the topic systematically despite its inclusion in the 12th-grade syllabus. Because the design is descriptive and confined to a single school, these associations should not be read as established causes. Controlled and free-practice activities for teaching simple-sentence structure are proposed, together with greater student exposure to English inside and outside the classroom and continuous teacher training, as directions warranting further, more rigorous research.