Abstract:
This article is based on the study which sought to assess pupils’ abilities in written English language skills among
English medium primary school pupils in Tanzania. The objectives of the study were to examine pupils’ abilities in
constructing complete and meaningful sentences; to investigate pupils’ abilities in using tenses; to assess pupils’
abilities in using punctuation marks; and to examine pupils’ abilities in spelling words. The respondents were 240
pupils from four English medium primary schools, based in Mbeya and Dar es Salaam Cities. The data collection
process was done using an achievement test and the collected data were subjected to item analysis in which
frequencies and percentages of students exhibiting the specified abilities were computed. The findings indicated that
the majority of the pupils had serious problems in the tested English language abilities. It was recommended, among
others, that English medium primary schools should recruit teachers who are proficient in English language so that
they could serve as role models to the pupils.
