GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

This work set out to examine the narrative techniques in the essays of Nigerian

undergraduates. The objectives were to discover how students in Nigerian

universities handle narrative essays, what narrative techniques they employ to

narrate events, how they make their narration interesting, and the problems of

language some of them encounter in writing narrative essays. The major

theoretical base adopted for this research is applied linguistics. Two groups of first

year degree students: 46 from the Department of Civil Engineering and 45 from

the Department of Marine Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering, Akwa Ibom

State University, Nigeria were given an essay test on the topic: The Last Road

Accident that I Witnessed. The test was conducted under strict supervision. The

students were asked to write it in 400 words within 50 minutes. After marking, 10

essays were selected from each department through systematic sampling procedure

making the sample size of 20. It was found out that students (subjects) who have a

good grasp of English grammar and vocabulary do well in narrative essays and

creative writing. Other students on the reverse side commit a lot of lexical and

grammatical blunders. It was concluded that this other set of students are not

educated in the use of English; they have imperfect knowledge of the language. It

was suggested that the use of English programme in Nigerian Universities should

be extended to two years in addition to other remedial measures.

KEYWORDS: Narrative, essay, techniques, calendar, clock-time, temporal,

transition, specific, action, dialogue, systematic, sampling,

aesthetic, lucid, prose, accident, road, subjects, experienced,

ghastly.