Students’ Proficiency in the Use of Communicative Functions

Abstract

This study entitled Students’ Proficiency in the Use of Communicative Functions is an attempt to find out the secondary level students’ proficiency in the use of five communicative functionsMaking Plan, Making Request, Suggesting or Advising, Expressing Condolence or Sympathy and Apologizing.To find out the proficiency level of the secondary level students, I administratedthe test among the forty secondary level studentsfrom Kathmandu district. Ten students were selected from each school usingfish-bowl method of sampling. My tools for data collection were ten subjective and ten objective questions based on five communicative functions, whereas subjective questions were asked to answer orally and their responses were recorded. Thisstudy showed that theaverage proficiencylevel of the secondary level studentsinthe use of five communicative functions in Kathmandu district is 75.08 in percentage, which is satisfactory. Likewise, the average proficiency level of secondary level students in using the exponent Making Plan was 86.25 %, in using Making Request 74.58 %, in using Suggesting or Advising 70.00 %, in using Expressing Condolence or Sympathy 70.41% and in using Apologizing 74.16 %. The students had good proficiency in using the exponents Making Plan and Expressing Apologizing in comparison to other language functions. This thesis has been organized into five distinct chapters. The chapter one consists of the background of study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, delimitations of the study and operational definitions of the key terms. Similarly, chapter two consistreview of related theoretical literature and its sub topics such as language teaching and learning, review of empirical literature, implications of the review of the study and conceptual framework. In the same way, chapter three includes the methods and procedures of the study, population, sample and sampling strategy, research tools, sources of data, data collection procedures, data analysis procedures and ethical considerations. In the same way, chapter four is thedata analysis and interpretation of the results, holistic proficiency of the students, school wise analysis of the students’ proficiency, item wise analysis of the students’ proficiency and studentserrors in using communicative functions. Finally, chapter five consists the findings, conclusion, recommendations and its sub topics; policy related, practice relatedand further research related. This study ends with the references and Appendices.