An Analysis of Errors Committed by Saudi Non-English Major Students in the English Paragraph Writing: A Study of Comparisons

Abstract

The present study investigates the writing errors of ninety Saudi non-English major undergraduate students of different proficiency levels from three faculties, who studied English as a foundation course at the English Language Center in the College of Languages &Translation at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2016-17. The findings reveal that the common errors the Saudi EFL students make in writing English paragraphs fall under four categories namely grammar, lexis, semantics and mechanics. Then it compares the categories, types and frequency of errors committed by these three groups of students. Among these categories, grammar has been observed as the most error-prone area where students commit errors the most. The study also posits that among the three groups, the students of the College of Medicine make the minimum errors in all the types and the highest number of errors is committed by the students of Engineering College. The College of Computer Science is in the second position in making errors. The frequency of error types is also found different among these three groups.Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.1p.31wari, &Al-Khasawneh (2013) highlight some causes behind their weaknesses of writing like weaknesses in knowledge and understanding of grammatical items, less practice, and educational background. Ansari (2012) delves deep into the difficulties of writing faced by Saudi students and finds out the root cause of their weaknesses which is in school's education system where students are not taught English in a proper way. By defining 'writing' and 'error' separately, this study mainly examines the writing errors committed by some non-English major undergraduate students of different proficiency levels from three colleges-Computer Science, Engineering and Medicine who studied English as a foundation course at English Language Center in the College of Languages &Translation at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2016-17. It also makes a comparison of the types and frequency of errors made by these three groups of students. In the end, the study comes up with some recommendations. Objective of the StudyThe aims of the present study are two-fold. The primary concern is to find out different types of errors made by Saudi Advances in Language and Literary Studies

A Fossilized Language Pattern for the Singular First Person Subject Pronoun in the Saudi Context: I vs. I am

“…In another article, Nuruzzaman, Shafiqul Islam, and Shuchi (2018) categorize errors committed by Arabic-speaking EFL learners (again in the Saudi context) and provide the following pattern as an example of a sentence structure problem. The sentence is: "I am go to university", which they correct as "I am going to university".…”

“…There are so many other fossilized patterns Arabic-speaking EFL learners produce (Noor, 1996;Abushihab, 2014;Al-Jamal, 2017;Noor, 1996;Al-Ahmadi 2014;Nuruzzaman, Islam, & Shuchi, 2018) that are observed in the Saudi context and elsewhere. Classification of errors might be a good start for error identification; however, researchers should go beyond classification, and analyze each fossilized pattern for the benefit of students.…”

Unique Challenges Saudi EFL Learners Face

“…Accordingly, Saudi EFL learners tend to misapply the Arabic rule to English by writing the adjective after the noun it qualifies (e.g., "it is famous for its air pure"). Nuruzzaman et al (2018) and Hafiz et al (2018) attributed this misapplication to interlingual errors resulting from L1 transfer, in which learners use grammatical features of Arabic when writing in English. and in contrast to highlight differences, Saudi EFL learners tend to write long clauses and to use and, also, so, and but, in excess, while forgoing proper sentence and paragraph structure.…”

Analysis of English writing errors committed by students learning English as a Foreign Language at Al-Istiqlal University in Palestine

“…Writing is considered as a difficult, complicated, cognitive process and demanding skill for both native and non-native speakers because several issues must be maintained such as content, organization, grammar, purpose, audience, vocabulary and mechanics (Abu Rass , 2015;Alsamadani, 2010;Nuruzzaman, Islam and Shuchi, 2018;Othman, 2018;Phuket and Othman, 2015;Zuhour & Fatima,2015 ). Generally, there are different approaches for the identification of possible learning problems in the second language acquisition: contrastive analysis, transfer analysis and error analysis.…”

“…As language develops, it is natural to notice error that learners commit. Also, a chance where educators develop courses and offer remedial plans to increase the accuracy of language use and skills (Atmaca, 2016;Demirel, 2017;Dweikat & Aqel, 2017;Nuruzzaman, Islam and Shuchi, 2018;Zafar, 2017;Kepner, 1991). It is noticeable that native speakers commit unsystematic errors of performance such as slips of the tongue from time to time compared with second language learners who make more frequent errors, and often ones that no native speaker ever makes.…”