ASSESSING THE STUDENTS’ PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILL IN FOURTH YEAR ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE STUDENTS AT WOLKITE UNIVERSITY.

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess problems students’ face in the process of developing effective paragraph writing skill in the case of Fourth Year English Language and Literature Majoring Students at Wolkite University. Furthermore, identifying causes which hinder students' writing effective paragraph in their academic study is also a crucial part of the research objectives. For the purpose of understanding students practice in depth and answering the research questions, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. The researcher analyzed unstructured and semi structured data by numerical description. The subjects of the study were Fourth Year English Language and Literature Majoring Students and English Language Instructors. The researcher used 10 students for sampling in order to collect relevant data from questionnaire. Three teachers were selected for an interview. The collected data through these instruments were analyzed and interpreted by qualitative and quantitative data analysis method and document analysis analyzed and interpreted by quantitative method. From this study, the researcher pointed out the following results: most students do not know how to use punctuation's appropriately and how to compose error free sentences, and how to maintain appropriate paragraph structure due to a number of factors such as lack of an experience, lack of information, lack of sufficient materials and so on. Therefore, few necessary recommendations were given to solve these problems. These were students should shape their awareness and attitude towards the writing of paragraphs in English language, students should exert their effort applying important principles for their writing, students should practice writing paragraph repeatedly in English, the teachers should encourage/expose them for writing, teachers should guide students with the necessary writing principals, teachers should provide students with timely feedback and valuable advice on how to handle the writing processes