Fossilisation in the written English of Xhosa - speaking students during the FET phase

Abstract

This study investigates error fossilisation in the written English of Xhosa - speaking students. It is hypothesised that there is no statistically significant difference in the language errors of two groups of Grade 10 and Grade 12 students.

Two randomly selected groups of 30 Grade 10 and 30 Grade 12 students in a rural senior secondary school in the Eastern Cape province were required to write two essays, of which the first two hundred words of each essay were marked. A frequency count of errors was done and comparisons were made.

The findings indicate that the Grade 12s consistently made fewer errors. However, the difference is only statistically significant in the case of prepositions and concord, and is insignificant in tenses, pronouns and articles. The findings also show evidence of fossilisation given the persistence of some of the errors. Certain features in the student's language were not eradicated by the additional two years exposure to English.