1. CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES

The weaknesses observed include:

1. mother tongue interference which resulted in transliteration;
2. verbose and poor expressions; 
3. inappropriate use of punctuation marks;
4.  wrong use of tenses, prepositions and articles;
5. failure to grasp the requirements and demands of the questions attempted;
6. inability to construct simple and correct sentences;
7. poor knowledge of idioms and their meanings;
8. illegible handwriting and inappropriate use of small and capital letters;
9. spelling errors;
10. poor knowledge of the basic rules of English grammar;  
11. mindless lifting of answers from set passages;
12. use of text message abbreviations such as “u” for “you” “d” for “the”, etc;
13. use of long, uncontrolled and ambiguous sentences;
14. inability to infer meaning from the passages;
15.  wrong syllabication of words and wrong use of homonyms and homophones.

1. SUGGESTED REMEDIES

Candidates should:

1. endeavour to improve on their vocabulary and grammar in English Language through extensive reading;
2. take time to understand the demands of questions before attempting to answer them;
3. read through their works to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes before submitting their scripts;
4. practise essay writing constantly;
5. converse regularly using simple and correct English expressions;
6. try to unlearn what they have learnt wrongly.

Teachers should:

1. spend more time in teaching grammar topics and comprehension skills;
2. in addition to giving their students assignments frequently, teachers should also mark such assignments in order to help students identify and correct their mistakes;
3. pay attention to spellings of words that can be confusing to students both in sound and spelling;
4. devise teaching methods that will cater for the various needs of their students;
5. bear in mind that language is acquired outside of the classroom and learned in the classroom, thus, they should create real-life experiences in the classroom during their teaching sessions;
6. regularly attend workshops and seminars that would keep them abreast of global best practices in the teaching of the English Language.

1. Schools should ensure that:
2. only qualified teachers are engaged to teach subject;
3. libraries are equipped with relevant books and materials that will aid the students academically.