Toward a taxonomy of errors in Iranian EFL learners' basic-level writing Mohammad Ali SALMANI NODOUSHAN, Iran Encyclopedia Compiling Foundation This study attempted at classifying common errors found in the written performance of lower-and upper-intermediate Iranian EFL learners. It engaged a rich corpus of EFL writing samples collected over a course of 20 years (between 1992 and 2011) from lower-and upperintermediate EFL learners studying at various Iranian universities to provide a precise taxonomy of errors in basic-level EFL writing (i.e., single paragraphs and five paragraph essays). A total of 3157 sophomore EFL learners were included in this study, and from each of them five writing samples were collected. There was a total of 15785 texts in the corpus which contained a total of 5,150,205 words. Corder's (1981) framework for error analysis was implemented, and it was found that basic-level EFL writing errors could best be classified into three major categories: structural, discursive, and cognitive. Classroom procedures and teaching techniques that can help both teachers and learners to overcome the identified error types are discussed.

The present study examines the status of different grammatical errors made by intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced students. To meet the goals, two judgment tests and one completion test are conducted. The result of the first judgment test determined that the most common errors committed more frequently by the EFL learners are in the area of prepositions. Then a completion test was taken to determine the type of preposition errors committed by the same participants. The results indicated that the wrong use of errors was more frequent than the omission or addition of errors and that these errors committed due to both inter-lingual and intra-lingual interferences. To investigate which wrong prepositions are used more frequently, another judgment test was taken. The prepositions selected for this purpose were into/to, in/at, with/by, of/from, over/on. These prepositions were selected due to the fact that each pair has one correspondence in Persian. The most frequent errors wer...

This study aims at investigating the writing errors of Saudi EFL university students of College of Science & Arts, Tanumah at King Khalid University in the academic year 2014/2015 during the first semester. The study also aims at identifying and analyzing these errors, determining the causes of these errors, as well as investigating the factors that contribute to their occurrence and suggesting suitable solutions for the problem. For this purpose, research questions are posed and the answers to these questions are provided and discussed. The sample of this study includes 20 students who are chosen from the Level Four students besides the EFL teachers in the abovementioned college. The analytical descriptive approach is adopted to handle this study. The study focuses on grammatical, punctuation, lexical, spelling and discourse errors in the writing English production of these learners .Testing, questionnaire , structured interview and personal observation of the researcher are all used as tools for collecting data. The findings of the study reveal that the students commit errors in their writing performance due to some factors such as: mother tongue interference, besides insufficient activities and practice of basic techniques of writing in addition to the lack of follow-up to the students' writing performance and some other factors.

The collection of this systematic article was an attempt to show a survey of current activities in the field of error analysis in English language from 2012 to 2018 in Iran. In the country, English is being taught as Foreign Language from middle school. Khansir and Gholami Dashti (2014) mentioned that English accepted as language to pass in the examination. However, English system in this country often put on formal accuracy and teachers focus on the teaching of English grammar in their classes. Error analysis approach has been a widely discussed topic for more than 60 years over the world. However, all the findings of this paper from previous research works on error analysis can be good reasons in order to guide and help reduce such errors in the written language of Iranian students in EFL setting and the results of this work can also be used to as a guide for English learners over the world. This article identifies and presents the major reasons leading to the English written err...

The present study focuses on the most common syntactic errors which Arabic speaking learners in Preparatory Year, Jazan University (Saudi Arabia) face in learning English as a foreign language. The results of this study reveal that the most common syntactic errors made by the learners are in sentence structure; subject verb agreement, tense, auxiliary verb, number, use of conjunction, preposition, article, etc. Many students in this study were categorized as slow learners who were not even aware of the importance of writing skill. Non-seriousness and less concentration of learners result errors and mistakes in their writing. In addition to that, the errors were hypothetically associated to the transfer of mother tongue and over generalization. In the Arab context, writing is not an easy task; it is, indeed, a challenging job for the teacher. Therefore, traditional methodologies do not help. Unless the teachers create interest about writing skill in the minds of the learners, the des...

Title An Analysis of Grammatical Errors in Iranian Students' English Writings Author Ali Sattari (M.A.) Payame Noor University, Koohdasht, Iran Biodata Ali Sattari is an instructor of ELT and Linguistics at Koohdasht Payame Noor University, Koohdasht, Iran. His research interests include contrastive linguistics, historical linguistics, critical discourse analysis and error analysis. Abstract This research describes and analyzes Persian English learners' grammatical errors in writing that mostly originate from the mother tongue. Data are gathered from compositions and exam papers of about 100 Persian learners of English. This research investigates Output or the corpus of the utterances that learners actually produce in writing. Also it shows that the language of second language (L2) learners is systematic and that learner errors are not random mistakes but evidence of rule governed behavior. These learners attend Elementary Course English classes at English Institutes in Koohdasht, Iran. This study shows that a great number of persistent errors made by these learners at elementary levels can be traced to the influence of the mother tongue. The results of studies like this can be used by language teachers, translators, textbook writers, test writers and the learners. When the teacher corrects students’ papers and points out their errors, he/she enhances their attention to correct language forms either explicitly or implicitly, hence increasing their grammar consciousness raising. Keywords: Writing errors, Error correction, Grammatical errors, Error analysis, Interlingual errors, Intralingual errors, Interference.