English language errors in undergraduate students’ written works at the University of Namibia

Abstract

This study examined the English language errors found in the written works of undergraduate students at the Khomasdal Campus of the University of Namibia (UNAM). Namibian students are likely to run into a number of issues when writing essays in English because they are not permitted to use their mother tongue when learning English during the early years of schooling. In this qualitative study, purposeful and convenient sampling techniques were employed to select a sample of twenty (20) first-year students from the UNAM Khomasdal Campus's Faculty of Education. Data for this study were collected from essays written by the student participants. Each participant was required to write one essay based on one of the topics provided to them. Essays were examined using "thematic content analysis" and "error analysis" in order to determine the writing of the students' primary strengths and weaknesses. Four lecturers from the UNAM’s Department of Language Development on the main campus were also purposefully selected as key informants. Pupils' writing issues and potential reasons for these issues were then determined using these strengths and weaknesses. The findings revealed that the students' work that was reviewed lacked organisation and coherence, and the majority of the writing seemed unclear.