THE ENGLISH IRREGULAR VERBS: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS

This work highlights the nature of the English irregular verbs by identifying what makes them irregular in nature, how this affects or causes problems to second language learners in Nigeria and proffering solutions on how to alleviate the problems. Both library and field researches are used to get the facts needed for the analysis. Descriptive design requiring respondents to supply answers to objective and subjective tests is used. A total of two hundred undergraduates from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe serve as respondents. The students are randomly selected from the institutions mentioned above. Six research questions guided the research which aimed at discovering the extent to which the English irregular verbs cause problems to second language learners. Fifty questions were administered to the respondents to test the research questions. In
analyzing the result the researcher observed that majority of the undergraduate students do not have the required knowledge of the use of English irregular verbs. Based on the findings, some recommendations which aimed at improving the learning of English in an ESL situation were made.

By Charity Ngozi Nwuba, Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, AWKA