Difficulties in identifying the English determiner system among EFL students in Ghana: The case of Francophone students

Abstract

The paper aims at discussing the difficulties that students from French speaking countries who are pursuing their education in a Ghanaian university face in identifying English determiners. This is a qualitative study that analysed the difficulties that level 100 Francophone students who have French as a Second Language(L2) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a Ghanaian university face in identifying English determiners. The data used for the analysis comprised students' written exercises. The data gathered in the study were analysed qualitatively. The theoretical framework on which this research is based is article-focused theory which is discourse rule transfer propounded by Robertson (2000) as well as the semantic model developed by Huebner (1983), known as the "semantic wheel for noun phrase reference". The findings of the study depict that pre determiners, central determiners and post determiners were found in the data analysed. Central determiners recorded the highest number of 25 representing 64%, followed by pre determiners with 11 representing 28% and post determiners showing 3 determiners denoting 8%. Based on the findings, some pedagogical measures such as taking into consideration the needs analysis and teaching all the three types of determiners in context communication were proposed as means of minimising Francophone students' difficulties in English determiner system.

Forced to study a second language online. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on EFL students due to the abrupt change to online learning

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, many courses that were supposed to be face-to-face courses were converted to online courses. This change was the best solution so that education did not entirely fall by the wayside (Tabiri et al, 2022). Agreed that online education should be used in schools because of its flexibility, convenience, and personalized learning opportunities (Evisen et al, 2020).…”