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Xuan Liu

APLNG 484

Dr. Strauss

5/4/09

Grammar Error Analysis and Pedagogical Implications：

A Case Study of 15 TOEFL Compositions written by Chinese EFL learners

SLA research suggests that error analysis of the learner language is a promising tool
both for understanding of the language acquisition process and for the development of
classroom teaching techniques. This paper reports the preliminary findings of grammar
error analysis of 15 Chinese EFL learners’ TOEFL compositions collected from the
biggest online English learning forum in China. The following issues are discussed: the
types and characteristics of errors, the causes of errors and error frequency. At the end,
some pedagogical suggestions for both Chinese EFL learners and the teaching of
effective grammar instruction are made.

Introduction

It is common and inevitable that people make a lot of errors when learning a foreign

language. In the past, such errors were regarded with contempt and looked upon as something

which should be avoided at all cost. However, in recent years, errors are perceived as symbols

which present stages of language acquisition. Accordingly, there has been a growing research

interest in the analysis of errors EFL learners commit while learning the foreign language. Such
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research analyses contribute to the development of both theoretical and pragmatic issues. On the

one hand, these analyses can be used as empirical evidence to either justify or refute the theories

in second language acquisition. On the other hand, the learning processes of EFL learners will be

understood better and the results of these researches provide valuable insights and aids for both

EFL learners and teachers. Specifically, the students can use the results to monitor their own

learning and the teachers can develop more effective strategies to improve the grammar

instruction.

Three Questions

Before doing the error analysis, there are three questions I need to address. The first question

is “What should be considered as an error?” It is a question disputes center on in EFL language

learning and teaching. Some researchers question “whether it is fair or accurate to label the non-

target-like production of L2 learners as ‘errors’, or such forms should more properly be

considered natural consequences of the evolving stages of learner interlanguage”. (Corder, 1967)

However, still there should be a working definition of “error” to help EFL teachers to detect the

problems of the students learning and help them improve. Therefore, in this paper, I will adopt

the common accepted definition of “error” which most language teachers feel comfortable with:

“Errors consist of morphological, syntactic, and lexical deviations from the grammatical rules of

a language that violate the intuitions of NSs” ( Ferris 264)

The second question needs to be answered is what type of classification of errors I will use

in this paper. There are a variety of ways to categorize errors. For instance, some studies classify
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errors as competence errors and performance errors. Still some other studies classify them as

semantic, syntax and morphology errors. This paper draws on the latter one. Considering that

there might be some cases where a syntax error can fall into the category of morphology error, I

use sub groups of error under the general categorizing system, in order to improve the accuracy

of error frequency given later. The sub groups of errors are based according to grammatical

categories such as articles, verbs, prepositions and so on.

The last question needs to be clarified is the types of causes of errors I will refer to in this

paper. According to Richards (1971), there are three causes of error making for EFL learner.

First, it is caused by “the influence of the learner’s mother tongue”. Second, it is produced while

the learner attempts to “form hypotheses about the target language” in the developmental process

of learning. Third, it is originated from “the structure of English itself”.

The Case Study

Data Collection

The data analyzed in this study were 15 TOEFL compositions written by Chinese EFL

learners. They were collected from an online language learning forum in China, which is the

biggest and most popular one for Chinese EFL learners to discuss issues about English learning.

Within the particular section of English writing in this forum, there are a large number of

spontaneously formed collaborative writing groups. Every week the members post their writings,

do peer editing and then revise. I randomly selected 15 compositions written by prospective

TOEFL test takers from several different groups.

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The English Proficiency of the Participants

Since there is no information about the backgrounds and proficiency of those writers in the

forum, it is impossible to get clear and accurate results about their proficiency in English.

According to my analysis of these compositions, I speculate that it is very likely that the English

proficiency of these 15 writers vary. Some of them are between intermediate and advanced

levels, which probably achieve the expected proficiency of taking TOEFL test, while others

might be below intermediate level who just wants to try what TOEFL would be like. In fact, the

varied proficiency of the participants could be beneficial in the sense that they indicate the

different stages in the developmental process of language learning.

Research Questions

The purpose of this case study is to identify the types, characteristics, frequency and causes

of errors Chinese EFL learners commit in their compositions. Therefore, the following research

questions were formulated:

1. According to the general categorizing system of errors mentioned above (semantic,

syntax, morphology) and the sub groups of errors (verbs, nouns, prepositions, etc), what

types of errors do the learners commit?

2. What types of errors are the most frequent and the least frequent?

3. According to the three causes of errors mentioned above (interference of the mother

tongue; the attempt to form hypotheses about the target language in the developmental
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process of language learning; the confusing structure of English itself), what are the main

causes of errors made by these writers?

Research Methods and Data Analysis Procedure

In order to identify the types and frequency of errors these Chinese EFL learners made, basic

descriptive statistics were used to calculate the numbers and percentage of certain error types.

In detail, after all data had been collected, first, each composition was analyzed individually

according to the appearance of errors under the dual classification system mentioned above.

Then, the total numbers of errors in each category were added up. With these statistics and

concrete examples of errors in those written texts, the patterns and frequencies of errors were

found out. After listing all characteristics “present” in these compositions, the possible causes of

errors were investigated. This is the final step in the data analysis procedure.

Preliminary Findings and Discussion

A total of 299 errors were examined and categorized into three general groups: syntax,

semantic and morphology. Under these three general groups, there are ten sub classes of errors:

verbs, prepositions, sentence structures, articles, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, word choice,

nouns, and spelling errors. Errors related with syntax accounted for 61.8%. Errors related with

semantic knowledge accounted for 23.1%. Errors related with morphology accounted for 15.1%.

Table 1 shows the number and percentage of each error type.

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Table 1

Error Example Number of Errors

Categories and Percentage

Verbs Verb tense or form, subject-verb 71 (23.7%)

agreement, passive voice or active voice,
incorrect, omitted or unnecessary verbs

Prepositions Incorrect, omitted or unnecessary 36 (12.0%)

prepositions
Syntax
Sentence Structures run-ons, fragments, comma splices, word 33 (11.0%)
order, omitted/unnecessary words or
phrases, unidiomatic sentence construction

Articles Article or other determiner incorrect, 17 (5.7%)

omitted or unnecessary

Adjectives 11(3.7%)

Pronouns 11 (3.7%)

Adverbs 6 (2.0%)

69 (23.1%)
Semantic Word Choice All specific lexical errors in word choice

Noun Plural or possessive ending incorrect, 35 (11.7%)

omitted, or unnecessary
Morphology

Spelling/Capitalizatio 10 (3.3%)
n
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The results showed that generally these EFL writers made a number of errors in almost all error

categories, however, the frequency varies. The top five commonly made errors are verbs, word

choice, prepositions, nouns and sentence structures. On the contrary, errors in adjectives,

adverbs, pronouns, spelling errors are relatively fewer. Considering the space constraint, the

reminder of this section will mainly focus on the top five error types and try to identify the

causes.

Errors in the Use of Verbs

Errors in the use of verbs found in this study include:

(a) Subject-verb agreement

E.g. (1) …it grant a large amount of money to sports activity… (grants)
(2)…as the population increase… (increases)
(b) Wrong use of verb tenses and aspects
E.g. (1)…He always tell me how he regrets… (told, regret)
(2)…I have finished this homework… (finished
(c) Passive/active verb forms
E.g. (1)…as far as I concerned… (I am concerned)
(2)…the possibility of replaced by other people… (being replaced)
(d) Errors in the use of modal verbs
E.g. (1)…some may asserted… (assert)
(2)…I guess I must be scolded by the teacher... (would)
(e) Use of –ing verb
E.g. (1)…without use it… (using)
(2)…although sports occupying most spare time… (occupies)
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(3)…instead of denying it…(denying)

(f) Wrong use of copula “be”
E.g. (1)…it is reasonable that more funds be allocated… (are)
(2)…as it related to… (is)
(g) Errors involving mixed-up verb tenses
E.g. (1) He opened a new book shop and spends all his savings.

As shown above, these writers had great difficulties in using right verb forms and tenses.

Besides, they are confused about modal verb usage and copula usage. In fact, this is common

among Chinese EFL learners due to several reasons. First, the interference of Chinese greatly

affects the EFL learners’ mastery of verb forms and tenses. in English, verb can be inflected in

four ways: (1) –s of third person singular present tense verbs; (2) –ed of past tense verbs; (3)-en

of the past participle; (4)-ing of the present participle. Therefore, different verb forms are used

depending on the particular context. However, unlike English, Chinese is a language without

inflection. Chinese verbs only have one form. And, tenses and aspects are shown by adding

adverbials. As a result, when verb forms are involved, Chinese EFL learners tend to generalize

and simplify them since they have no frame of reference.

Second, verb usage in English is extremely complicated itself, which are great linguistic

burden for EFL learners. Under such situations, EFL learners might over-generalize, simplify or

ignore certain grammatical rules to “reduce his linguistic burden”, as Richards mentioned. For

example, in the first example of (d), the writer used “asserted” after the modal verb “may”,

which actually requires being followed by basic verb form “assert”. It is entirely possible that the

writer attempted to show that this event happened in the past, but he/she over-generalized the use
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of modal verbs and then committed the error above. Another example involves the use of –ing

form of verbs. The data indicated that these writers had great difficulties in this aspect. In

English, verbs following prepositions should be –ing form. However, 10 out of 15 writers used

basic verb forms after prepositions, as illustrated in the first and third examples of (e). Another

problem arises from these data is that these Chinese EFL writers tend to omit the copula “be” in

passive constructions, as in (c). This might imply that these writers already internalize the

features of active voice structure and apply them to passive voice structures as well.

Errors in Word Choice

Here are some examples of word choice errors found in this study:

(1) Social activities are inalienable facets of college life.

(2) He or she could, surely, forge such abilities after graduating from college.
(3) …in an attempt to procure reputation and fame
(4) If Mark Twain had fewer creative calibers…
(5) The intellective friends give us…
(6) We can safely justify an unshakeable viewpoint…
(7) Newton had frantically fell into…with indestructible persistence…

The statistics indicated that word choice errors is the second most frequent errors committed by

these Chinese EFL learners. In other words, it is hard for these writers to choose correct or

appropriate words to express their ideas clearly.

Usually, word choice errors don’t violate any grammatical rules. However, they result in

awkwardness or vagueness. A misused word or phrase prevents the sentence/text from flowing
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smoothly or idiomatically. For example, in (5), the writer attempted to say “smart”, however,

he/she used “intellective” which means “relating to the intellect”. Although the meanings of

these two words are related, the word “intellective” does not go with the noun “friend” and as

well does not fit the register and context. Take (7) for another example, the original intention of

the writer was to praise Newton’s passion and persistence about his research. However, he/she

used the words “frantically” and “indestructible”, both of which have a negative connotation.

In fact, good word choice making requires a relatively high English proficiency on the part

of the writer. On the one hand, they need to master a large number of vocabularies and phrases.

On the other hand, they need to acquire the ability to distinguish the nuances of semantic

meanings of synonyms depending on the particular context. Since the proficiency of these 15

writers is between intermediate and advanced or even lower, it is possible that they made wrong

word choices due to their limited vocabulary storage and as well their lack of knowledge of

contextual meanings of words. Another possible reason is that it is commonly believed that

flowery writing guarantees higher score among Chinese EFL learners. Therefore, as prospective

TOEFL test takers, these 15 writers intentionally used words “big” but not “appropriate”.

Errors in the Use of Prepositions

According to Table 1, preposition errors were the third most frequent error type. Here are the

three main types of preposition errors included in this study:

(a) Wrong choice of prepositions

E.g. (1) On the second paragraph… (in)
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(2)…contributes in one’s success (to)

(3) Will this trend go on in 20 years? (for)
(b) Omission of prepositions
E.g. (1)…four years working… (of)
(2)…fed up their jobs… (with)
(c) Insertion of prepositions
E.g. (1)…appreciate for what college has done for them… (for)

As Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman described, a preposition is a word that “connects words to

other parts of a sentence and has a close relationship with the word that follows, which is usually

a noun”. (19) In English, preposition can be one word (in, to…) or more than one (on top of).

Besides, some prepositions are optional while others not. For instance, in the sentence “I have

lived here for three years”, the preposition “for” can be either deleted or kept. However, there are

cases where preposition must be deleted. For example, in (c), the preposition “for” has to be

deleted since the verb “appreciate” does not need a preposition. But, if the verb is a prepositional

verb, the preposition cannot be deleted. For instance, in the sentence “I look at her”, the

preposition “at” cannot be omitted. Since rules concerning preposition usage in English are so

complicated, EFL learners easily felt confused. As a result, sometimes they omit obligatory

prepositions while other times add unnecessary ones. For instance, in cases where more than one

prepositions are obligatory, the Chinese EFL learners tend to delete one, as the second example

illustrated in (b).

Besides, although Chinese has its own preposition system, it is quite different from the one

in English. Most Chinese structures require zero prepositions. Therefore, Chinese EFL learners
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have nothing to refer to when prepositions are involved. They tend to make analogy of what they

already learnt and apply to new situations. For instance, after learning “on the second page”, they

might produce “on the second paragraph” in (a).

Errors in the Use of Nouns

The statistics also showed that these EFL writers had difficulties in choosing correct noun-

endings. The examples of noun errors found in this study are as follows:

(a) Countable nouns where –s is left out

E.g. (1)…parks, communities and even street… (streets)
(b) Singular countable nouns and uncountable nouns where –s is included
E.g. (1)…academic researches… (research)
(2)…eat foods in the restaurant… (food)
(3)…the majorities of my friends… (majority)
(c) Incorrect nouns
E.g. (1) I am willing to make friends with humor.

According to Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, generally, nouns have two kinds of endings.

First, nouns have “derivational morphemes that formally indicate that a word is a noun”, such as

the –ness of “happiness”. Second, nouns have “grammatical morphemes or inflections for plural

and possessive”. The data indicated that almost all the noun-ending errors made by these 15 EFL

writers fit in the second category: plural or possessive endings of nouns. A possible explanation

of this is the interference of Chinese. Although sometimes Chinese adds a morpheme “qun” or

“men” to distinguish plural nouns from singular nouns, in most cases, it uses quantifier or

different words to make this distinction as a non-inflected language. Accordingly, it is hard for

Chinese EFL learners to use the plural or possessive endings of nouns appropriately.
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Besides, in English, nouns are divided into several sub groups, such as common nouns,

proper nouns, collective nouns, countable/uncountable nouns, abstract/concrete nouns, etc. The

choice of plural and possessive endings varies these different sub groups of nouns. For example,

the word “food” in the second example is an uncountable noun. Therefore, it does not need to be

inflected as “foods”. For Chinese EFL learners, remembering all these rules governing noun-

endings are great memory load. So, it is reasonable that they tend to over-generalize, simplify or

ignore those rules.

Errors in Sentence Structures

It is interesting that most of the 15 writers tend to write extremely long sentences with

awkward structures, which are incomprehensible in most cases. As far as I am concerned, it is

quite possible that they equal the length of sentence with the quality of it. By using padding and

relative clauses, they made their sentences as intricate as possible. However, among the sentence

structure errors found in this study, the majority are related to relative clauses. Here are some of

the examples:

(a) Wrong use of relative pronouns or missing relative pronouns

E.g. (1) In contrast, every industry needs particular specialists, which are often the core
of… (who)
(2) It would not be not a good thing if we cannot ensure our residents are safe. (“that”
is needed after “ensure”)
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(b) Extremely long but incomprehensible sentences with several relative clauses
E.g. (1) Of all the scientists and technicians who represent the utmost advanced and
quintessentially intelligent people invariably have the school background where they
preserved copious amount of required knowledge and ability and established a
concreting basis for their foreseeing attainments.
(2) Contrary to this view my heartfelt objection to the idea that various kinds of
knowledge which we learn from broad subjects is essential for career development,
further study, as well as towards our daily life.

As Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman described, a relative clause is “a type of complex

postnominal adjectival modifier used in both written and spoken English”. (571) It can be

divided into restrictive relative clause and non-restrictive clause. Also, there are several relative

pronouns: who, what, whom, which, that, and whose. The use of relative pronouns varies

depending on the object it modifies. For instance, in the first example in (a), the object is

“specialist”. It is a noun which refers to a person, so relative pronoun “who” should be used

instead of “which”. So, the complex syntactic structure of relative clauses in English is one of the

causes of errors.

In fact, Chinese also has relative clauses. However, it is quite different from English. First,

whereas English uses different relative pronouns, there are no explicit relative pronouns in

Chinese. Also, the position of relative clauses in English and Chinese differs. The former is

postnominal while the latter is the opposite. Therefore, L1 interference accounted for the high

frequency of relative clauses errors found in this study as well.

Aside from errors in relative clauses, comma splices, run-ons and fused sentences are
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common among the errors these Chinese EFL learners made, too. It is found that when these

writers joined two independent clauses together, they were inclined to miss the coordinating

conjunction and punctuation. The following are some examples:

(a) Comma Splices

E.g. (1) We search information through internet, it save much time and enrich our lives.
(2)Some of them are humorous, some are smart.
(b) Run-ons and fused sentences
E.g. (1) They are not mean they are just not considerate.
(2) When they have good performances we may be always asking ourselves…

Moreover, another noteworthy aspect about sentence structures found in this study is that there

are certain structures frequently used by almost all of those 15 EFL writers. For example, eleven

out of fifteen writers used the same sentence structure “Some people believe that…while

others…” with little variation. Another example is that thirteen out of fifteen writers wrote the

sentence “We can safely draw the conclusion that…” in the ending paragraph. More

interestingly, the formulaic “five-paragraph-essay” structure and the same cohesion words were

adopted by all of the writers. The most frequent cohesion words are “first/second/third,

additionally, finally, moreover, besides, first of all, however, nevertheless, to sum up, in a word”

and so on. It seems that there are certain “formulas” in their writings. A possible explanation

might be that all of them are greatly affected by writing templates.

To summarize, these 15 Chinese EFL writers committed a huge number of errors in their

compositions with different types and frequencies. Most frequently, they made errors in verb

forms and tenses, word choice, prepositions, noun-endings and complex sentence structures. As
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for the causes of these errors, they are mainly attributable to the interference of Chinese, limited

English proficiency of the participants, over-generalization, simplification or ignorance of the

rule restriction.

Pedagogical Suggestions

The main purpose of this study is not only to identify the types and characteristics of errors

made in these 15 compositions by Chinese EFL learners. More importantly, it aims at providing

feasible and effective pedagogical strategies for EFL teachers to improve grammar instruction in

the real classroom. With the above findings about the main areas of difficulties in grammar faced

by most Chinese EFL learners and the investigation of the causes, several instructional strategies

in grammar (especially in composition class) are provided as follows:

(1) Since the frequency of different error types varies greatly, the teacher should specifically

focus on patterned and rule-governed errors that can be addressed effectively in

classroom through instruction.

(2) In order to help EFL learners make word choices correctly and appropriately, teachers

should focus more on the usage and meaning of vocabularies and encourage the students

to practice the usage of words/phrases in real contexts rather than simple memorization

of individual words.

(3) It is necessary for teachers to do error correction or feedback. However, it should be

selective rather than comprehensive. Also, peer editing and group editing can be an

alternative of giving error feedback sometimes.

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(4) Since the interference of L1 is one of the most important reasons of error making, the

teachers should have the awareness of the differences and similarities between English

and Chinese, which will probably help them figure out the cause of errors made by the

students.

Conclusion
This study investigated and analyzed the characteristics and patterns of grammatical errors

in 15 Chinese EFL learner TOEFL essays. The statistics showed that syntactic, semantic and

morphological errors are in a hierarchy of descending order. In detail, verbs, word choice,

prepositions, noun-endings and complex sentence structures are the most problematic areas.

After the identification of errors, the probable causes as to why such errors occurred were

examined: the interference of L1, over-generalization, simplification and ignorance of rule

restrictions, and as well incomplete application of the grammatical rules. Finally, four

instructional strategies for grammar instruction are given.

It is evident that such small based error analysis cannot make excessive claims about the

characteristics and causes of errors made by Chinese EFL learners. But, at least it provides some

observations and findings which can be explored in future researches. To certain extent, it

exposes the problematic areas of grammar learning faced by Chinese EFL learners and

contributes to a better understanding of EFL teaching and as well a better development and

implementation of such teaching in real classrooms in the future.

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Works Cited

Celce-Murcia, Marianne, and Larsen-Freeman, Diane. The grammar book: an ESL/EFL teacher’s

course. 2nd ed. Boston: Heinle &Heinle, c1999.

Ferris, Dana R., and John S. , Hedgcock. Teaching ESL composition: purpose, process and

practice. 2nd ed. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998.

Richards, J. C. “A Non-constrastive approach to error analysis”. English Teaching 25.3(1971)