Assessing Students’ Oral Errors in Classroom Presentations:

Bahir Dar University Postgraduate Diploma Program Students in Focus

Abstract

Analysis of communication problems in second/foreign language education has been considered as one way of assessing language learning needs of students in the course of designing and instructional materials. Assessing language errors of students also provides teachers with more information about their students’ language status and help teachers direct their instructional focus.  The current study examined language errors that two sections of post graduate diploma students committed during their classroom presentations. Making two oral presentations of individual students (lasted for seven to ten minutes each) was part of the course offering.  Thus, the two groups’ (Math and Physics) oral presentations were observed and transcribed for identifying language errors.  The result shows that the students committed more grammar and lexical errors such as tense, voice, diction, agreement and missing auxiliaries that created significant barriers of communication. Besides, the three students interviewed also acknowledged such language errors and they felt that the problem was resulted from limited classroom presentation and oral practices. In light of such findings, the students have to go through intensive language learning activities and practices that reinforce not only their communication skills in general but also their grammar and lexical capacities.