WASSCE Candidates’ Weaknesses In Gonja And Remedies | Extract From Chief Examiners Report Towards WASSCE 2023 Gonja
Teachers preparing students for any examination are always worried about the potential weaknesses in answers that their students will provide during the examination. Fortunately, the main examining body, the West Africa Examination Council always provide WASSCE candidates’ weaknesses in Gonja during the last held examinations.
WAEC Summary of 2021 WASSCE In Gonja Paper One (1)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
1) This year, majority of the candidates wrote good essays with some of them writing up to five hundred words or more.
2) Majority of the candidates did well to answer all the comprehension questions with full sentences and some of them actually scored high marks there.
3) Most of the candidates answered the required number of questions with a high level of understanding.
4) Majority of the candidates were able to answer questions on types of phrases and were able to give suitable examples.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
1) Some candidates lack in-depth knowledge in the orthography of the language. Words that need to be written together as one word were separated as for example, e che instead of eche (woman), be nimu instead of benimu (elders), kagben to fuli instead of kagbenetofuli (pleased) etc and some other words that should be written as single words are separated.
2) Some candidates failed to use punctuation marks appropriately.
3) Most of the candidates had no regard for direct and indirect speech as they failed to use the appropriate quotation marks where they were using direct speech.
4) Majority of the candidates who attempted the question on excursion treated it as a letter.
5) Some of the candidates used wrong tenses in their answers, especially in the essays and the translation.
6) Some candidates copied part of the comprehension passage as their essays.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) Teachers should do more word drills and give more written exercises which should be marked and the spelling mistakes discussed and corrected in class. Students should also be made to read Gonja supplementary books to improve upon their reading and writing skills.
(2) Teachers should guide candidates to read more books on the language to improve upon their expression. They should point out the punctuation marks to students as they read and explain their uses to them.
(3) Candidates should be encouraged to pay more attention to punctuation marks when they are reading any text in the language.
(4) Teachers should pay more attention to the correct use of tense and give students regular exercises and assignments which should be marked and corrections made to improve students’ grammar.
WAEC Summary of 2020 WASSCE In Gonja Paper One (1)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) Answering the required number of questions: It was noted that most of the candidates made the effort to answer up to the five questions that they were expected to answer. In addition, the majority of the candidates made the effort to write up to five hundred words and over in respect of the essays.
(2) Good organization: Many of the candidates organized their answers very well by answering every question on a fresh page. Most of the candidates answered the comprehension questions with full sentences and very few tried to copy part of the passage as their answers.
(3) Ability to answer questions on language structure: There was an improvement in the performance of many of the students as they were able to answer questions that required the description of some of the vowels and consonants. This was not the case in previous years.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) Poor Orthography: Poor spelling of words has been one of the major weaknesses of most of the candidates. Some words that need to be separated were joined and some other words that should be written as single words were separated. For instance, two or three words were written together as one word e.g., ‘kewurma’- is made of three words which is supposed to be written separately as ‘kuwɔrɔ ma”.
(2) Poor Organization of answers: About ten percent (10%) of the candidates did not have the idea of paragraphing as they wrote their essays without paragraphs. Some of those who did also wrote whole paragraphs without full stops.
In addition, some candidates started the next sentence with small letters after full stop.
They failed to use the correct punctuation and used commas where they were expected to use full stops. Some candidates also had no regard for direct and indirect speech as they failed to use the appropriate punctuation marks.
Another serious weakness was that majority of the candidates who attempted the question on speech writing did not know that a speech has to have a heading, so they all wrote their addresses before writing the speech.
(3) Poor Grammar: Some of the candidates used wrong tenses in their answers especially in the essays and the translation. With the translation, many candidates failed to translate words like ‘Pilot’ and ‘university lecturers. They also failed to understand the import of the passage and used the wrong expressions in their answers.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) Poor Orthography: It is important to draw the attention of teachers to this problem for them to pay much attention to getting their students to spell words correctly. Poor spelling makes candidates to lose marks for mechanical accuracy in the essays and translation. To remedy this situation, teachers should organize more word drills and give more written exercises which should be marked, and the spelling mistakes discussed and corrected in class. Students should also be made to read story to improve their ability to spell.
(2) Poor Organization: Students should be taken through the correct organization of their answers and should be guided to use the appropriate punctuation especially the use of punctuation for direct speech. More exercises should be given on speech and report writing.
(3) Poor Grammar: Teachers should pay more attention to the correct use of tense and give students regular exercises and assignments which should be marked, and corrections made to improve students’ grammar.
WAEC Summary of 2021 WASSCE In Gonja Paper Two (2)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) There was indication that candidates read and understood the rubrics of the paper. Hence, they were able to answer the required number of questions in each section correctly.
(2) The questions on customs and oral literature were well answered by the candidates.
(3) The prose and drama questions were equally well answered. This also shows that, the candidates read and understood the prescribed books, the prose (Ndefoso) and the drama (Abaranyɛ).
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(1) Some candidates could not express themselves well in the language.
(2) The content of some answers was shallow and very brief especially for the poetry aspects fo the paper.
C. SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) Teachers should take the candidates through enough exercises in order to improve their expressions in the language.
(2) The teaching of Literature should be made attractive and teachers should assist their students to study the prescribed poems vividly in order to gather more content for their answers.
(3) Much attention should also be paid to such features as; the theme of the poem, mood of the poet, structure of the poem and literary devices in a poem.
WAEC Summary of 2020 WASSCE In Gonja Paper Two (2)
A. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ STRENGTHS
(1) There was an indication that the candidates read and understood the rubrics of the paper. Hence, they were able to answer the required number of questions from each section.
(2) The candidates also did very well in answering the oral literature and customs and institution questions that formed section ‘A’ of the paper. Their answers were specific and encouraging.
B. SUMMARY OF CANDIDATES’ WEAKNESSES
(9) Presentation of ideas: A lot of the candidates merely narrated even if the question is to be examined, commented on or discussed. Many used irrelevant materials and elaborate introductions which at the end produced sketchy and scanty material not meeting the demands of questions. (10) Poor Knowledge of Texts: Due to lack of familiarity with recommended texts, many failed to write fully to meet the demands of questions. In fact, some candidates did not seem to have met the set texts.
See also: WASSCE results: WAEC released latest errors to avoid
SUGGESTED REMEDIES
(1) The key to studying and writing good answers in Literature is close reading and study of texts. Candidates must read and study the texts without seeking short-cut approaches such as relying on commentaries.
(2) The teaching of Literature should be made interesting and lot of assignments should be given, marked and discussed in class.
It is the hope of our team that candidates will perform better when teachers and candidates go through this summary of strengths, WASECE candidates’ weaknesses in Gonja and remedies and apply same
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