ARSI UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

A STUDY ON GRADE 8 ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS’

DIFFICULTIES IN WRITING PARAGRAPHS

ACTION RESEARCH PROPOSAL

BY:NIGUSIE TOLA

Advisor: YeshitlaHabemariam (Ph D)

Submitted to Social Science and Humanities; Department of English.

December, 2019

Bokoji, Ethiopia
Contents
CHAPTER ONE: IntroductioN...................................................................................3
1.1 Background of the Study............................................................................................................3
1.2 Statement of the Problem.........................................................................................................5
1.3 Objectives..................................................................................................................................6
1.3.1 General objective................................................................................................................6
1.3.2 Specific objectives...............................................................................................................6
1.4 Research Questions...................................................................................................................6
1.5 Significance of the Study............................................................................................................7
1.6 Scope of the Study.....................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER TWO: Review of the RELATED LITERATURE....................................8

2.1 Definition of Writing..................................................................................................................8
2.2 Definition of Paragraph..............................................................................................................8
2.3 Importance of Paragraph Writing..............................................................................................9
2.4 Structure of Paragraph...............................................................................................................9
2.4.1 Topic sentence....................................................................................................................9
2.4.2 Supporting sentences........................................................................................................10
2.4.3 Concluding Sentence.........................................................................................................10
2.5 Qualities of a Good Paragraph.................................................................................................10
2.6 Paragraph Writing Features.....................................................................................................10
2.6.1 Grammatical Problems......................................................................................................11
2.6.2 Problems of Sentence Structure.......................................................................................11
2.6.3 Problem of word choice....................................................................................................11
2.6.4 Punctuation Problems.......................................................................................................11
2.6.5 Capitalization Problems....................................................................................................12
2.6.6 Spelling Problems..............................................................................................................12
2.6.7 Content Problems.............................................................................................................12
2.6.8 Problem Organization.......................................................................................................12
2.7 Steps in Paragraph Writing......................................................................................................13

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 2.7.1 Planning (Pre-Writing).......................................................................................................13
2.7.2 Writing a draft...................................................................................................................13
2.7.3 Revising.............................................................................................................................14
2.7.4 Editing...............................................................................................................................14
2.8 Teacher’s Role in the process paragraph writing Classroom....................................................14
2.9Feedback...................................................................................................................................15
2.9.1 Teacher’s written feedback...............................................................................................16
2.9.2 Peer feedback...................................................................................................................16

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY...................17

3.1 Research Design.......................................................................................................................17
3.2 Participants of the Study..........................................................................................................17
3.3 Sample Size and Sampling Techniques.....................................................................................17
3.4 Instruments of Data Gathering................................................................................................18
3.4.1 Writing Tests.....................................................................................................................18
3.4.2 Questionnaire...................................................................................................................19
3.4.3 Interviews.........................................................................................................................19
3.5 Procedures of Data Collection..................................................................................................19
3.6 Methods of Data Analysis........................................................................................................20

CHAPTER FOUR: BUDGET BREAKDOWNAND TIME SCHEDULE...............20

4.1 Budget Break down..............................................................................................................20
4.2 Time Break down/Schedule.................................................................................................20
REFFERENCE...................................................................................................................................22

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 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study

The capability to write successfully is becoming very important in our international

community, and instruction in writing is thus pretending role in both second and foreign
language education. Moreover, learning to write correctly is something students in different
academic settings never manage. Furthermore, writing skill considers as a predictor of
academic success and a necessary requirement especially for students to achieve an effective
texts: paragraph, essay. Speaking about paragraph that considers the basic element and the
core of an essay, students find it a difficult task to develop effective, well-structured
paragraphs without further mistakes.

Developing paragraph-writing skill is not a matter of using only syntax or terminology, but
it is more than this. Therefore, the student’s control of their paragraph can be reached by the
considerable efforts that teacher presents to identify the real problems. Teacher feedback has
a vital role in improving students’ paragraphs in one side, and nurtures their confidence,
motivation as writers in the other side.

According to Kress (1989), the issue of the writing skill is not limited to the meaning of
acquiring a set of mechanical orthographic skill, but it extended this meaning to be
integrated with another new cognitive and social relations. Miller (1989) also agree on this
by saying that “even though the writing production is an expression of one‘s individuality
and personality. It is important to remember that writing is endeavor, a way of
communicating with people”. This productive skill is one of the communicating means that
people use in order to convey their messages, and share their different ways of thinking and
believing as well.

Dehaven (1988) assure that writing is a complex and the most difficult skill which has not
been given due consideration. In addition, Nunan (1999) argues that producing a

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Coherent and fluent piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing of the language for
the native speakers, but there are enormous challenges for the learners of the language as a
foreign language. Richards and Renandya (2002) also point out about its difficulty for ESL
learners due to generating and organizing ideas and translating these ideas into readable
texts.

Zitouni (2015:24) states that lacks some necessary conditions of teaching such as the
appropriate teacher feedback given to the students, and the ability of the teachers to create a
relaxed situation in the classroom becomes a challenging task for teachers to offer good
atmosphere of teaching. In addition, factors as class size, time limitation, and students’
problems have a great impact in teaching writing. Thus, students need to be exposed to a
series of meaningful task on the major areas of language skills. Regarding this, Ur
(1991:163) states that the purpose of writing, in principle, is the expression of ideas, the
conveying of a message to the reader; so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the
most important aspect of the writing. On the other hand, the writer needs also to pay some
attention to formal aspects: neat handwriting, correct spelling and punctuation, as well as
acceptable grammar and careful selection of vocabulary.

In addition, students need to pay attention to several matters in their writing such as content
or ideas, organization, structure, word choices and word forms and mechanics which means
using the right correct punctuation, spelling and capitalization. Writing skill is even more
challenging for EFL students because it is a complex process since they are expected to
produce written work that are syntactically accurate, semantically acceptable and culturally
appropriate (Raas, 2015:49).

Paragraphs require for written communication that make sense language appropriately. It
can be acquired a natural process (organize) language use. Writing Paragraph can only be
gained through concise practices in structured fashion. It is from this point of view that these
days the curriculum and syllabus of English language treat writing as one area of focus
along with reading, speaking and listening skill.

Writing paragraph is one way to ensure that the students exchange information well. So,
students write clear paragraph it helps to communicate with their peer and the community

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without any problem and develop their paragraph writing skills and overcoming their
deficiency of their paragraph writing problems. Therefore, this study intended to analyze
students` paragraph writing problems in the case of grade 8 students of school in Assela
town.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In the education system of Ethiopia, English is taught simultaneously as a subject and used
as medium of instruction in high schools and universities. Teshome (2001) indicates the
language English has long established its usefulness in Ethiopia as a foreign (second)
language both as a medium of instruction of secondary or tertiary levels
and a language of international communication, for example, official language diplomacy,
international organizations. Thus, the importance attached to English paragraph writing
today is greater than ever before.

Furthermore, understanding students’ paragraph writing difficulty is crucial for improving

the quality of EFL writing. A number of local researches conducted on the teaching and
learning of the writing skills at various educational levels in the country. The importance of
teaching English Paragraph writing should be, as much as possible on the bases of our
foreign language acquisition. Because, there is a sense in which learning a foreign language
is basically a matter of learning the use of a language. But the majority of the students prefer
grammar related questions rather than striving to overcoming paragraph writing problems,
students lack of interest influence to give make up classes by the actual classroom teachers
to enhance their level of paragraph writing ability, leads to the learners to be careless and
students lack of awareness, courage an interest on what the students have been taught can be
made them in efficient to write any paragraph in English. More of the writing tasks and
activities presented in the syllabus and textbook require the students to practice paragraph
writing under process-oriented approach; yet, the students' paragraph writing ability is still
not satisfactory in elementary school.

In Ethiopian context too, majority of primary, secondary, college, and university students
face similar problems. Dawit and Demis (2015), for example, contend that the current
language teaching and learning is focusing on the four language skills; however, according

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to them, the standard of English among students is on the decline though they were learning
for several years. They also argue that students who are attending in colleges and
universities are still weak in English, especially in their writing skills. Tekle and Ebabu
(2012) also emphasize that many university students cannot construct vocabulary in writing
due to their grade level. It considers and it attempts to fill the gap that has not been filled yet
by the current study will aim to analyze students' paragraph writing correct and meaningful
sentences, acceptable paragraphs, and essays. They believe that students‟ poor performance
in universities could be the result of poor experience in secondary schools. Within the
context of Assela Elementary school the researcher as the English teacher in the school
observed the students are ineffective in paragraph writing. They are still not ready to express
their feelings in English through paragraph writing. The conclusion is that the process
approach was not fully implemented in the writing sessions.

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 General objective

The major objective of this research is a study on grade 8 English language learners’
difficulties in writing paragraphs.

1.3.2 Specific objectives

The specific objectives of the study are to:

i. Identify common paragraph writing difficulties which Students encounter.

ii. Examine the Skills and Strategies Which Students lack when they write paragraphs
iii. Assess what students do to improve their paragraph writing skills.

1.4 Research Questions

i. What is the common paragraph writing difficulties which studentsencounter?

ii. What skills and strategies do students lack when they write paragraphs?

iv. What do students do to improve their paragraph writing skills?

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1.5 Significance of the Study

The researcher hopes that the result of this study will have some contributions in
enhancing the quality of students` paragraph writing. Therefore, students, English language
teachers, curriculum planners, and any researcher will be beneficiaries. Students benefit
because the result of this study suggests ways of developing paragraph writing. It helps
English language teachers to engage their students in the different stages of the writing
process that promote paragraph writing. The result of this study also helps curriculum
planners to recognize the prevalent difficulties in order to shape the teaching materials.
Furthermore, it gives considerable help to any researcher who wants to conduct further
research in the same area of study

1.6 Scope of the Study

This study is limited to analyze a study of grade 8 English language learners’ difficulties in
writing paragraphs in Assela Elementary School. The study is not touching all aspects of
writing skill but only on Paragraph writing in a specific way.  The study
is limited to grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, clarity, content or ideas,
organization, structure, word choices and vocabulary due to their grade level. According to
Hijjatul and Sri (2016), Writing is difficult because students need to pay attention to several
matters in their writing such as content or ideas, organization, structure, word choices and
word forms and mechanics.

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 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE RELATED
LITERATURE
2.1 Definition of Writing
Writing is a system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in
such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the
uttered (Peter and William, 1996). Writing systems are both functional, providing a
visual way to represent language, and also symbolic, in that they represent culture and
people. In the writing systems of the world, Coulmas (1991) described them as follows;
“As the most visible items of language, scripts and orthographies are emotionally loaded.
Indicating as they do group loyalties and identities. Rather than being mere instruments
of a practical nature, they are symbolic systems of great social significances.

2.2 Definition of Paragraph

Paragraph has been defined variously by different writers since there is no universally
accepted definition. Paragraph is combination of sentences, intended to explain, illustrate,
prove, and applysome truth; or to give a history of events during any definite portion of
time, relation to any one subject of thought (Duncan, 2007). According to Jeylan (2009)
paragraph is related group of sentences, arranged in logical manner which develops one
main idea. Paragraph is the next division of discourse beyond the sentence and is “a
collection of sentences with unity of purpose. Besides; Njoku (1997) defines a paragraph
as “the largest single unit of an essay. It develops one single, main idea by means of
supporting facts.

Furthermore, Omisha and Ann Hogue (2006) say that a paragraph is a basic unit of
organization in writing a group of related sentences develops one main idea and consists
of two kinds of sentences: a topic sentence and a number of supportive statements.
Number of sentence within a single paragraph is an important but it should be long
enough to develop the main idea clearly. Though sometimes for emphasis, or in dialogue
or transition, paragraph may have only one or two sentences. A closer look at the various
definitions reveals that they all speak to the fact that a paragraph is a group of sentences
that deals to a single idea. Therefore a working definition of the paragraph for this paper,

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derived from the various definitions is, paragraph is a group of related sentences that
discuss one main idea, the first sentence of which begins on a new line.

2.3 Importance of Paragraph Writing

Paragraph writing has always been considered an important skill in teaching and learning.
As commented by Rao(2007), EFL writing is useful in two respects: First, it motivates
student’s thinking, organizing ideas, developing their ability to summaries, analyses and
criticizes. Second, it strengthens students learning, thinking and reflecting on the English
language. Besides, writing process is a form of problem-solving which involves
generating ideas, planning, goal setting, monitoring, and evaluating what has been
composed (White and Arndt, 1991). In relation to the context of the current study,
paragraph writing is significant to the learning of Ethiopian student of English because it
facilitates student‟ acquisition of the basic study skills needed for understanding what
they study and expressing it in their own words. This will assist them to keep away from
memorization, rote learning and plagiarism that are much discouraged in the recent
theories of teaching and learning. In addition, competence in paragraph writing will help
students pass all their academic courses successfully. Moreover, being proficient in parag
raph writing in English will enable student of English to be successful and action research
ers in the future.

2.4 Structure of Paragraph

Mayers (2006) and Khoury (2007) point out that the structure of a paragraph consists of
three important parts. That is, regardless of its type, a paragraph has three main parts:
topic sentence, supporting details and concluding sentence.

2.4.1 Topic sentence

Topic sentence is a beginning section which typically describes the scope of the
document and gives the brief explanation of the paragraph. It is a commencement of
whole project which will help readers to have an idea about the following text before they
actually start reading it.

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2.4.2 Supporting sentences

The supporting sentence consists of one or more sentences, ideas and arguments. The
Supporting sentences that follows the topic sentence should be more specific and develop
the idea expressed it. The supporting sentences can be made more specific using various
details, facts, statistics, examples, opinions and personal experience and these are ordered
in a logical manner (O’Donnell and Pavia, 1993).

2.4.3 Concluding Sentence

Concluding sentences is often the most difficult part of a paragraph/essay to write, and
many writers feel that they have nothing left to say after having written the paper. It
summarizes the text, offers a solution to the problem, predicts a situation, makes a
recommendation, or restates a conclusion (Reid, 1994).Most important, the concluding
sentence should ensure that the reader gets the paragraph’s main point and takes away the
intended message. Understanding a conclusion's purpose, significance and features is
essential to writing an effective concluding sentence.

2.5 Qualities of a Good Paragraph

The writer to concentrate on the central topic, one aspect at a time. While there is no
simple formula for writing a good paragraph, the writer should know that a paragraph in
support of one’s topic should adhere to certain principles to assure clear progression of
thought. Therefore, a good piece of paragraph writing has the following Paragraphs
constitute the basic unit of organization in an article. They have the virtue of allowing
qualities.

2.6 Paragraph Writing Features

The features of paragraph writing make it a difficult skill. Regarding this idea, Nunan
(1991) asserted this; writing is the most difficult skill to learn as it involves a number of
elements such as mechanics, content, format, grammar, vocabulary etc. In addition to
this, writing is a difficult skill to learn because it requires cautiously structured, combined
and organized sentence to form a text. The presence of meaning and message intensifying
devices such as punctuation, capitalization, underlining, etc. make writing difficulty

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(Byrne 1988). Reid (1993) added that writing is very difficult, as it demands correct
grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, content and diction. As indicated in the
above literature, the difficulty of writing EFL students encounter is related with its
features. The features of paragraph writing represented below.

2.6.1 Grammatical Problems

Learners have a number of problems in their attempts to write in the second language.
“As verbs take different forms depending on tense and subjects they are used with, they
create problems for second language writing students” (Tyner, 1987). Similarly, Kharma
(1986) states that students have problems with subject verb agreements, pronoun referenc
es, and connectors.

2.6.2 Problems of Sentence Structure

Sentences reflect various syntactic structures (Reid, 1983). However, incapable learners
use, incorrect, and fragmented sentences. Kharma (1986) states that those students who
are the problem of writing good sentence structures are unable to produce longer
sentences requiring subordination and coordination.

2.6.3 Problem of word choice

A good writing should consist of appropriate and varied range of vocabularies used along
with proper grammar and varied range of sentence structures Norish (1983). According to
Reid (1983), when the writer practices the choice of vocabulary that would reflect a
concern for the reader and the purpose of writing, the composition written by the student
would become sensible to his/her reader. However, writing in a second language using
the appropriate words in the appropriate place is a problem for students. For example,
White (1980) states that usually students use „big words‟ in their essays or paragraphs to
impress the reader and the teacher. The effort to impress the reader leads to a problem of
diction.

2.6.4 Punctuation Problems

According to Byrne (1988), the fact that punctuation has never been standard to the
extent as Spelling, makes it is problematic. Similarly, Crrol and Wilson (1995) state

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"students' writing encounter punctuation problems as there are no universal rules of
punctuation."

2.6.5 Capitalization Problems

Capital letters are useful for sentence initials, the beginning of important words, in topics,
Headings etc. (Kroll, 1991). However, learners have problems in using capitalization
properly. There are reasons for students‟ problems in using proper capitalization. “The
rules of capitalization are not universal and classifying nouns as proper and common
nouns are difficult for students” Gowere(1995)

2.6.6 Spelling Problems

Due to the influence of other languages, various pronunciations and other historical
reasons, the English spelling system which has become inconsistent is complex for leads
to spelling problems students encounter in paragraph writing.

2.6.7 Content Problems

Learners of English as a second or foreign language also face problems of exploring ideas
and thought to communicate with others Clifford (1987). According to Leki (1991) this
could be because of the traditional methods teachers use to teach writing for spelling,
punctuation, and mastering grammar. Clifford (1987) suggests that teachers should encou
rage students to focus on the message, ideas or thoughts they wish to convey rather
than grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Goweret.al (1995). It means that, the inconsiste
ncy and variation of words actuation and others.

2.6.8 Problem Organization

According to Kharma (1986), learners have the problem of structuring the paragraph,
topic development of a paragraph, structuring the whole discourse and a theme in a
discourse. “The most common students problem in paragraphing is either the paragraph is
not limited to a single topic or the single topic is not developed or exemplified
adequately” West (1966). Raime (1983) states that the other problem of organization in
student‟ writing is the difficulty of differentiating a topic, and supporting ideas or
generalizations, and specific details. Pincas (1982) has also showed that learners have the
problems of writing.

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2.7 Steps in Paragraph Writing
Writing approach in 1970s started gaining broad writing classroom practice and it changed
the traditional practice to new methodology. It is known that in traditional method practice
focused on the finished work, while in new methodology learners are given the experience
of going through the processes of writing as writers. So, instead of analysis and correction of
the final written product (usually) given by the teacher, there comes the process of writing in
a number of activities, processes or stages: as Graves (1983) suggests that the processes
include pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. These stages are more easily
processes, understood in EFL classroom context Laksmi (2006). Also, according to
Tompkins (1994) these which are the same processes that real writers apply during their
writing, are recursive instead of linear: which means any writer via using these processes
can jump back and forth from one stage to another as they write. Accordingly, a paragraph
can be taught using the following writing process steps.

2.7.1 Planning (Pre-Writing)

The planning stage of the writing process in teaching paragraph includes everything the
students do before they actually start to write. It includes: analyze the task, choose a
subject, brainstorm to generate ideas for their writing, use diagrams (Clustering) or
randomly listing ideas to help themselves develop both ideas and words list for their
writing, decide the sort of writing, audience, and determine the purpose for their writing
Spivey,(2006). In addition, seeing listed ideas together on paper will aid writers to make
connections and look at their topics again from a new perspective Baly(2009).

2.7.2 Writing a draft

Once the learners have planned out their ideas, the next step is to start drafting. Students
start their writing without composing it before hand in their mind. According to Laksmi
(2006) “to help students negate this idea and emphasize the notion that writing is not to
write in an instant thought, they are assigned to label their papers rough draft”. This label
keeps reminding them to simply jot down their ideas. Therefore, the first draft of their
writing may contain lots of errors like incomplete ideas and mechanical mistakes.

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What makes students to make the above mistakes are students begin their rough, tentative
ideas via the activities of writing and refining drafts. So, as a student at this point does
not worry about correcting the errors, because the aim of putting their ideas into sentence
is greater than correcting the errors.

2.7.3 Revising

The word “revision” literally means, “to see again.” That is why students in this stage
decided to revise and improve their writing. During this stage students are not required to
correct minor grammar mistakes but they should pay particular attention to the content
and organization of their writing Bae(2011). As Tompkins (1994) claims “revision is not
just polishing writing; it is meeting the needs of readers through adding, substituting,
deleting, and rearranging material” .So, according to him revising is a good opportunity
for the students to refine their writing during this stage.

2.7.4 Editing

Editing stage come after the revising stage. In this stage, students work to make their
writing, optimally readable‟ Laksmi (2006). “Editing is putting the piece of writing into
its final form” (Tompkins, 1990, as cited in Bae, 2011). The changes that take place in
editing stage are capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar changes. Hence,
process approach to the teaching of paragraph writing claim, for the priority of the stages
which writers go through in relation to the final product. However, this approach requires
teacher to be researcher; it needs too much time, not just two or three session’s pair-work.

2.8 Teacher’s Role in the process paragraph writing Classroom

One of the most valuable issues central to the process approach is the role of the teacher
in improving student’s paragraph writing skills. In this approach, the teacher’s main role
shifts from being the source of authority to that of facilitating tasks and helping students
produce well-structured paragraphs by teaching them the stages of the process approach.
Harmer (2004) mentions about five roles of a teacher; teacher as a demonstrator,
motivator, supporter, res-ponder, and evaluator.

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Basic 1: Effective writers need to understand that like talking, listening, and reading,
writing is also a language act and therefore draws on similar semantic and syntactic
knowledge. According to them, in classroom this means, teachers give students time for
talking and listening before, during, and after writing. Students need time to talk about
their topics before they start to write. Talking and listening are used before writing with
the purpose of helping the students focus and get an initial sense of audience for their
writing, during writing, to clarify and check for meaning and will often lead to revising
and rewriting, after writing, to give the writer a sense of satisfaction, which will lead to a
desire to write again.

Basic 2: Effective writers need to be confident. They need to understand that writing is
life opportunities for students to reflect on their writing and to share their writing with
peers. Providing students with time to reflect on their own writing and to share their
writing attempts with each other begins to build trust and respect for each other as
writers.

Basic 3: Effective writers need to understand the roles that audience and purpose play in
shaping the different types or genres of writing. This means, teachers always give
students opportunities to talk about the purpose and audience for their writing before they
begin writing. They also make appropriate models of various genres readily available in
the classroom and engage their students in a range of writing tasks that demand a
response such as letter writing.

Basic 4: Effective writers need to have an understanding of the process of writing,

including an understanding of why it is important to learn to spell, punctuate, and
understand appropriate use of grammatical features. This means, teachers regularly model
all aspects of the writing process in an explicit and systematic manner.

2.9Feedback
Feedback refers to supplying students with clues about spoken or written errors in ways
which are designed to promote correction by students. It is also used to refer to giving
supportive reactions to students’ ideas, way of organizing what they say or write, in such

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a way as promote improvement by students. (Atkins et al.1996). Providing constructive
feedback to students’ work is an important part of writing development and has a great
impact on students’ ability to produce quality writing.

2.9.1 Teacher’s written feedback

Although oral response is given much emphasis, teacher written response continues to
play an important role in most second and foreign writing classes. Mamo, (2001) assure
that teachers’ response to students’ composition writing is a significant pedagogical
means that provides critical information to students about their writing performance.
Harmer (2001), for example, states that feedback is used to help and teach students by
offering comments on how they have used the language in the past in order to improve
their use in the future.

2.9.2 Peer feedback

Peer feedback is one of the techniques that writing classes make use of and most
researchers recommended it for learning because they examined its effects on learners
and their writing. In peer feedback situations, learners engage in the collaborative activity
of reading, critiquing, and providing feedback on each other’s writing, both to secure
immediate textual improvement and to develop, over time, stronger writing competence
via mutual scaffolding.( AL Nasser, 2013).

General Comments

1. Be sure the sources you have used are appropriately acknowledged. That is,
check that information you have included in chapter two is genuine paraphrase or
quotes of your own.
2. Ideas marked as good should be ref;ected in the introduction and statement of the
problem, objective and research question of your study.
3. Determine what spherically you would like to study: Is it student’s problem of
composing ideas in a paragraph? Is it the students’ difficulty in using topic
sentence, support sentence, or concluding sentence? Is it their inability to use
mechanics (capitalization, punctuation or spelling)? Or what? You can consider
others as well. ( Make appropriate use of what you have mentioned in the review
of Literature)
4. Check that important ideas in the literature are considered in the introduction,
statement of the problem, objectives and research question.

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 5. Your research objectives and questions lack clarity and focus. Revise them in line
important ideas mentioned in the literature.

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN AND

METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents an overview of the research methodology. It incorporates research
design, selection and description of the participants, research setting, instruments that will
be used for the data collection, and data collection procedures.

3.1 Research Design

Mixed case study method in Assela Elementary school which combined both qualitative
and quantitative approaches will be used in conducting the study. According to Creswell
(2012) mixed method will be used to triangulate to specify, delineate, or describe
naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation Seliger and Shohamy
(1989). It will used to establish the existence of phenomena by explicitly describing.
According to Best Cohen and Marrison, (2000) mixed research will help researchers to
identify conditions or relationships that exist; practices that prevail; beliefs, points of
view, attitudes that will held; processes that are going on effects that are being felt; or
tends that are developing.

3.2 Participants of the Study

Participants of this study will be fourEnglish language teachers and 120 students of grade
8 AsselaElementary school. The researcher will believes that these selected teachers and
students have a better understanding and knowledge about the problem under study and
able to give concrete evidence and reliable information for the credibility of the research
findings.

3.3 Sample Size and Sampling Techniques

The sampling technique will use to select the School, grade level and section is purposive
sampling. The teachers of Assela Elementary School grade 8 who are teaching English
will be selected for interview. Among 120 grade 8 students from total population 480, 25

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% samples, will be selected systematically, that will be based on their class’ roll number
every tenth, will beselected for writing tests.

3.4 Instruments of Data Gathering

In order to achieve both the general and specific objectives of the study, three instruments of
data collection will be used to analysis the Students Paragraph writing problems. Such as:
writing test, observation and interview.

3.4.1 Writing Tests

Writing test (pre-test and post-test) will be used as the main instrument of data collection
because this tool will be used to collect first hand and reliable information from the
respondents. In order to investigate EFL Students’ problem in paragraph writing, the
researcher prepared three topics. This is because the students’ knowledge about the topic is
that influence students’performance of paragraph writing. When we compare students their
focus on generating ideas, those with good topic knowledge could perform better than others
by concentrating on organizing ideas Langer (1984).Thus, the participants will be informed
to select one topic which is convenient to them.

Furthermore, the students will be informed the purpose of the paragraphs they will go to
write and advise to write consciously. Then after, the students will be divided in to two
classes and write their paragraphs in two consecutive days. Time will be arranged and the
participants told to avail themselves on their own respective schools. Then the researcher
himself writes the three topics on the black board. He will tell them to choose one from the
list topics. The participants will be given enough time or inform to write their paragraphs
until they finish their ideas. Finally, the researcher will be collected the papers and take it to
analyze. Later on, the paragraphs written by the 120 students will be analyzed by the
researcher critically and objectively to identify difficulties in writing paragraphs. This will
be done by identifying the relevant data thematically and classified it in to different
categories to generate topics. This means that problems will be presented on the basis of
data receive and put in to different categories base on the types of problem occur.

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3.4.2 Questionnaire

Questionnaire was employed to elicit information from the students in line with the research
objectives. It includes close-ended items. This data gathering tool gave the respondents
freedom to express whatever they know students Paragraph writing problems about process
lived experience. Best and Kahn (2005) indicate that both kind of items will be used in
questionnaires. They also point out that the open-form probably provides a greater depth of
response. Therefore, the respondents could reveal what they really know about each item
they were requested to respond for, and possibly the reason for their responses. In case of
the close ended items. The instruction and the question in the questionnaire were clear and
easy to follow. The subject was told that the questionnaire was used for research purposes
only.

3.4.3 Interviews
To elicit detail information, interview will be employed to English language teachers of
grade 8 in the setting of research. The purpose of interview is to obtain information by
actually face-to-face talking to the subject (Seliger and Shohamy, 1989; McDonough and
Shaw, 1993). The teachers will be expected to reflect on their live experiences on
challenges they face in paragraph writing in grade 8 students. This will help the
researcher to obtain deeper insights about the research problem. According to, Kumar
Ranjit (2011.p. 142) an interview situation is possible for an investigator to obtain in-
depth information by probing. Hence, in situations where in-depth information requires,
interviewing is the best method of data collection.

3.5 Procedures of Data Collection

First, information about students` paragraph writing problems will collect using writing
tests and the paragraphs written by 30 students will be analyzed critically and identify the
problems in students paragraph writings. Second, classroom observation check list to the
target population of the study will be collected for interpretation. Finally, to triangulate
the information gained above, interview will be prepared and asked to all the four EL
teachers who teach in AsselaElementary school.

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3.6 Methods of Data Analysis
First, the data will collect through writing tests regarding student` paragraph writing
problems willbe analyzed by carefully looking what they willbe written qualitatively and qu
antitatively. In this case, since some ideas which indicate the frequency of writing problem
contains numbers and percentages will summarize in tables, quantitative method of data
analysis was employee. However, most of the student paragraph writings will be analyzed
qualitatively. Second, the close-ended and open-ended questions will be collected from the
students about paragraph writing problems will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
Next, the data gathered from the EFL teachers through semi-structured interview was
analyzed qualitatively. Eventually, based on the analysis of the data from all sources, the
researcher summarized the research findings, draw conclusions from the findings and
forward some recommendation.

General

1. Check that whatever you have documented are paraphrases of you own?
2. Determine what you would like to study for instruments of data collection are affected by
them.
3. Have detailed understanding of quantitative and qualitative data collection and data analysis.
4. The Methodology part is not strong.
5. Make all modifications in line with comments given in each section. For this, you have to
have deeper understanding of what you would like to investigate.

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 CHAPTER FOUR: BUDGET BREAKDOWNAND TIME
SCHEDULE
4.1 Budget Break down
S. no Items to be purchased Total Unit Price Total Price Remark
Birr Cents Birr Cents
No
1 White Paper 4ream 150 00 600 00
2 Notebook 1 50 00 50 00
3 Pens 6 10 00 60 00
4 CD/R 6 60 00 360 00
5 Flesh disc 2 240 00 480 00
6 Binder 1 50 00 50 00
7 Cable 1 50 00 50 00
8 Flesh reader 2 30 00 60 00
Total 23 640 00 1710 00

4.2 Time Break down/Schedule

The research could not conduct in a short period of time since it needs ample time to carry
out the process in a good manner. Due to this fact, the researcher arranges or breaksdownthe
allotted time in tabular form as follows. It takes 7 months from September 2019-June 2020.

No Activities Time As Remark

S 0 N D J F M A M J
1 Problem Identification X
2 Literature review X X
3 Proposal Preparation X x x
4 Proposal submission x x
5 Proposal defense x x
6 Data collection x
7 Data organizing and x x
analysis
8 Report writing x
9 Submitting the first draft x
10 Using advisor’s comment x
11 Writing the final report x
12 Submission
13 Defense of the research

No Type of Services Total cost

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 Birr Cent
1 Questionnaire printing and photocopying 500 00
2 Typing research 650 00
3 Research printing 300 00
4 Final research printing and binding 900 00
5 Telephone and postage 100 00
6 Transportation 500 00
7 Other activities 1000 00
Total 3950 00
The total expected prices for purchasing items and services will be 3950 birr + 1720
birr=5670 ETB

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