Structure and segmentation in paragraphing: A case study of Mount Mary College of Education, Ghana
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Abstract
Apart from teaching listening, speaking and reading skills, one of the main goals of teaching English Language is to develop the writing skills of students (Rao, 2019). This study examined how Mount Mary College of Education students write paragraphs in their essays. A total of 160 student-teachers forming 21.14% of a target population of 757 were used for the research. These student-teachers were made to write expository essays which served as the main data collection instrument besides tutor interviews and focus group interviews for the student-teachers. The Essay Analytical Framework (EAF) of Owusu (2012) was used for the analyses. The findings of the study showed that although most of the student-teachers wrote and developed their paragraphs they encountered myriads of challenges in paragraphing the introductory, the body and the concluding paragraphs which confirmed the need for the research. Parents, guardians and the government as a whole will reap the benefits of this investigation. Parents would be informed about the curriculum that their children are imbibing as well as the kind of learning resources to acquire for them. The government would equally be equipped with the necessary information about how to initiate, plan, and supervise implementation of policies in relation to education, specifically writing.
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