914541
SGOXXX10.1177/2158244020914541SAGE OpenTerzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
research-article20202020
Original Research
A Comparative Study of 10th Grade
Turkish Cypriot Students’ Writing Errors
Yildiz Terzioğlu1
SAGE Open
January-March 2020: 1–19
© The Author(s) 2020
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020914541
DOI: 10.1177/2158244020914541
journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo
and Hanife Bensen Bostanci2
Abstract
The present study aims to shed light on analyzing the types and the frequency of the written sentence errors committed by
58 tenth grade Turkish Cypriot English as a foreign language (EFL) students in two classrooms, that is, Class A and B at a
public vocational high school in North Cyprus. A quasi-experimental design was employed in the study where Class A was
the experimental group which was exposed to an audio-visual aid titled “the Little Red Riding Hood” and Class B who acted
as the control group. Data were collected from the written sentences produced by the students. All the errors committed by
the students were identified and categorized into syntactic, morphological, orthographic, and lexical categories. The results
of the study showed that both classes of students committed 11 types of common errors: (a) wrong use of articles, (b) wrong
use of prepositions, (c) word order, (d) verb tense, (e) omission of plural –s, (f) misuse of the possessive –s, (g) incorrect
use of comparative adjectives, (h) incorrect spelling, (i) punctuation, (j) capitalization, and (k) wrong words. However, the
experimental group committed less errors (N = 232, 57.14%) as compared to the control group (N = 320, 78.82%). The
findings have implications for EFL teachers to incorporate audio-visual aids into their teaching methodologies when teaching
the writing skill.
Keywords
audio-visual aids, contrastive analysis, error analysis, interlingual transfer, intralingual errors, English as a foreign language
learners
Introduction
The written errors of learners of a foreign language are
unavoidable as they are indications to teachers on the areas s/
he needs to focus on to improve the students’ writing skills.
However, not many studies have been carried out on the
nature and the distribution of errors specifically at public
institutions in northern Cyprus. This study attempts to highlight the errors committed by 10th grade public vocational
high school English as a foreign language (EFL) students in
North Cyprus. The results will provide implications for educators showing them what needs to be taught and which
strategies and procedures their students could employ in
learning the second or foreign language (L2). The focus of
the study is on the EFL students’ sentences as they act as
small units of language forms and inform teachers about the
students’ progress in language. In addition, knowing the contributory sources of these errors will contribute to the
improvement of the EFL students’ writings as they will provide a reduction in the number of errors committed. The
study will also account for the language areas of development to eradicate errors. Thus, the study seeks to explore the
classification of the most frequently occurring written errors.
Furthermore, this study discusses the effect of possible
pedagogical implications of providing authentic audio-visual
input for EFL students to reduce the errors in their writing.
Turkish Cypriot students have problems in composing
sentences. Their written work is not free of errors, and teachers devise strategies by anticipating certain common types of
errors. This study aims to help the language teachers notice
the most common specific language errors and save time by
concentrating on the most frequently occurring errors.
Therefore, the present study will identify the types and the
most common errors systematically and quantify the percentage and the rank of each error.
Turkish Cypriot Context
It is notable that students in North Cyprus start learning
English in the third grade at the primary level and continue
1
Haspolat Vocational High School, Mersin, Turkey
Near East University, Mersin, Turkey
2
Corresponding Author:
Hanife Bensen Bostanci, Department of English Language Teaching, Near
East University, Near East Boulevard, 99138 North Cyprus, Mersin 10,
Turkey.
Email: hanife.bensen@neu.edu.tr
Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of
the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2
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learning English at the secondary schools when they begin to
learn complex structures. According to the Department of
Educational Planning and Program Development (2005),
students learn English and vocational English with respect to
their field of study, that is, electrical and electronics, information, and communication technology to be able to communicate in the future. Turkish Cypriot learners commit
numerous errors in writing (Bensen, 2014; Bensen &
Çavuşoğlu, 2017; Bostancı, 2019). Errors are indications to
how far a learner has learnt (Corder, 1982). For this reason,
it is vital to reveal the most prevalent errors produced by
these students, infer the possible causes of these errors in the
light of the literature and thus, suggest pedagogic strategies
to overcome these errors. In the light of the above, the main
aim of the study was to reveal the causes of the low achievement of learners’ written work in general and to classify the
grammatical errors in their writings in particular.
The present study was undertaken to identify, describe,
and categorize the types of errors in students’ writings of 14
sentences in a comparative study of two classrooms with a
quasi-experimental design. This study had three objectives to
accomplish. The first phase of the study investigated the
types and the frequency of the sentence errors committed by
the Turkish Cypriot EFL learners. The second phase dealt
with comparing the findings of the differences in terms of the
total number of errors between the experimental group and
the control group. The final phase addressed the sources of
the common errors. Thus, this study aims to answer the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
What are the most and the least common types of
sentence errors EFL learners commit when producing written sentences to describe the story of the
Little Red Riding Hood?
Is there a significant difference in the errors produced
by the EFL learners when they are exposed to audiovisual aids and the learners who do not receive any
audio-visual prompt to write the same story?
What are the main causes of the written errors
committed?
Literature Review
When learning a language, mistakes made in written work are
usually produced due to slips in which a learner is able to self
correct. On the other hand, errors cannot be self-corrected
unless in the case of advanced learners (Çetereisi & Bostancı,
2018; Kashavarz, 2015). For this reason, learners need support
on reducing errors. “Errors taper off and are reduced progressively as the learner gains more experience and applies the
necessary knowledge” (Al-Sobhi, 2019, p. 52). So, mistakes
are seen as “failures in performance” while errors are seen as
“failures in competence” (Corder, 1982). To be able to detect
whether a learner has made a mistake or an error it is advised
to focus on the frequency of occurrence. However, in some
occasions, this is also not enough, so, we need to go further
and examine the source (cause) of such errors (Keshavarz,
2015). The causes of errors can be divided into two main categories, that is, interlingual and intralingual (Brown, 2007).
Interlingual errors consist of the transfer of the first language
(L1) forms such as morphological, grammatical, and lexical to
the foreign or the second language (L2). In contrast, intralingual transfer is caused by the negative influence of the L2
forms within the same language. In other words, intralingual
errors reflect learners’ incomplete L2 knowledge. Intralingual
errors can be divided into six categories, that is, overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restriction, false analogy, hyperextension hypercorrection, and faulty categorization (Keshavarz,
2015). Overgeneralization involves incorrect application of a
structure beyond its standard use in the target language (TL).
Ignorance of rule restriction occurs when the learner is not
aware of the restriction of the L2 rules. False analogy is inevitable, when learners attempt to use a verb or a preposition in an
inappropriate context. Hyperextension consists of inappropriate use of an adverb or lexis instead of a conventional structure
in the TL. Hypercorrection takes place when learners try to
correct themselves consciously by using words or phrases
beyond conventional rules. The last sub-category, faulty categorization, occurs when learners place the L2 structures into
wrong categories.
According to Keshavarz (2012), written errors can be categorized into global and local. It could be said that global
errors in writing require close attention because they include
wrong word order, wrong use of prepositions, and pronouns.
Therefore, global errors cause the message to be incomprehensible. On the other hand, local errors include lack of prepositions, inadequate vocabulary, and misspelling. Thus, the
readers can often interpret the intended meaning from the
context even if there are minor linguistic errors.
Gass and Selinker (2008) stated that errors give teachers
valuable feedback about the learners’ strategies and their
development of the interlanguage system in the foreign or
the second language (L2). In other words, errors detect the
learners’ knowledge. In addition, teachers can do remedial
practice on the most frequent errors in their classrooms.
Errors are inevitable features of the language learning process as they give valuable insights to teachers about language
acquisition. The significance of errors lies in the fact that
they are the gaps in learners’ knowledge. Errors help teachers
devise appropriate materials, effective teaching techniques,
and tests to cater for the needs of different types of learners
(Jabeen, 2015). Teachers can count the incorrect sentences,
identify problematic areas, and initiate different modes of
feedback depending on the frequency of errors (Richards,
1974). Errors can give feedback on the effectiveness of materials so that teachers can move on to the next item in their
syllabus. Furthermore, teachers gain an idea about the learners’
progress by focusing their attention on the troubled items and
get a whole picture of the learners’ linguistic development
(Corder, 1982).
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
Before the emergence of Error Analysis (EA), errors were
seen as sins that needed to be eradicated immediately.
Contrastive Analysis (CA) tried to explain the causes of
errors as first language (L1) interference on the second language (L2) structures. CA focused on teaching strategies and
teaching materials (Fisiak, 1985). Similarity in the TL and
the L1 was thought to have a positive effect and facilitated
learning. The claim of the CA was that the differences in two
languages would cause problems which could be predicted
in the contrast of the L1 and the L2.
CA had its roots in Structuralism and Behaviorism
between 1950s and 1960s. According to the behaviorist theory, language learning was understood as habit formation
with a stimulus, eliciting a response and reinforcing the successful behavior (Brown, 2007). CA was unable to predict a
great majority of errors as it was based on comparing structures in two languages. Chomsky (1959) opposed to the
behaviorist theory and emphasized that humans were born
with a Universal Grammar that included innate linguistic
competence. In addition, the Audio-lingual Method was a
popular method in the 1970s and involved pure repetition
and memorization of language in chunks to avoid errors at all
costs.
EA was based on Generative Linguistics and the cognitive
theory of second language learning. According to EA, errors
are not signs of failure which need to be abolished immediately (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005). In fact, it sees errors as
necessary parts of the language learning process and provides feedback for the learners to test and modify their
hypothesis about the TL (Keshavarz, 2015). The classification of errors helps teachers to identify the features of the
language that cause difficulty (Ellis, 1994). EA reveals how
learners cope with the learning process by adopting different
language learning strategies. It is a crucial part of learning
and provides an insight about language development and
tracks down the learners’ progress. In short, interpretation of
errors helps learners to self-correct or do peer-correction by
detecting and describing errors linguistically (Macaro, 2010).
EA is a systematic method to identify and explain difficulties in the TL (Corder, 1967). Therefore, EA is a crucial part
of learning and provides an invaluable source of information
for teachers about the learners’ language development
(Lightbown & Spada, 2006). EA was a reaction to CA. There
are two processes that are related with EA. First, descriptions
of errors involve application of the linguistic theory to the
data of erroneous sentences. Second, interpretations of errors
occur when researchers detect and describe errors linguistically and find out the psychological reasons for their occurrence. Furthermore, EA is a branch of Applied Linguistics
and has two functions. First, theoretical EA describes learners’ knowledge in the L2. Second, practical EA looks into
bridging the gap between learners’ knowledge and the
context.
To be able to conduct an EA, Corder (1982) puts forth five
stages: collecting a sample of learner language, identifying
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errors, describing errors, explaining errors, and evaluating
errors. Kashavarz (2015) classified errors linguistically into
orthographic, phonological, lexical, morphological, and syntactic. These major categories are then classified into subcategories to highlight a more detailed description of error
types.
The writing skill is related with conveying ideas and getting the meaning across through composing a written product. Hyland (2009) contends that learners need to be engaged
in cooperative writing. So, authentic audio-visual aids can be
combined with written texts to connect the classroom with
the real world. Quibol-Catabay’s (2016) study provided the
audio-visual aid of the “Rabbit and the Turtle” story to a random sample of 30 Accounting and Technology students in
Tuguegarao to analyze the types and the frequency of errors
in students sentences.
Many studies focused on the written errors committed by
EFL learners and found out that wrong use of the articles,
prepositions, and tenses were the most frequent errors
(Abushihab, 2014; Atmaca, 2016; Kirkgoz, 2010; Zheng &
Park, 2013).
Kirkgoz (2010) analyzed 120 essays of 86 beginner, adult
Turkish learners and found that verb tense (N = 75), omission of the articles (N = 65), pluralization (N = 55), and
prepositions (N = 55) were the most common errors in a
total of 400 errors. Interlingual errors were found to be the
most prevalent causes of the grammatical, prepositional, and
lexical errors.
A study undertaken by Bensen (2014) to identify both the
pre-service teachers’ grammatical errors and also to find out
the effectiveness of the integration of blended corrective
feedback into an EFL academic writing course in North
Cyprus revealed that using singular nouns instead of plural
and wrong use of tenses (N = 181), paragraph and essay
organization (N = 68), mechanical errors (N = 51), and
vocabulary (N = 37) were the most frequent errors committed by the Turkish Cypriot students. It is important to recognize the results of the study that planning to write essays in
chunks and online peer-feedback in draft-writing engaged
learners, increased their motivation and reduced the number
of errors. This study highlights that one of the shortcomings
of English courses at tertiary level in North Cyprus is that
they are exam-oriented (Bensen, 2014). So, they do not
include any corrective feedback. The study concluded that
EFL pre-service teachers’ grammatical performance could be
improved with the integration of blended written corrective
feedback with the implementation of the Microsoft Office
software.
Bostancı (2019) analyzed and classified the frequent writing errors of Turkish Cypriot university students. Fifty-five
EFL learners ranging from pre-intermediate to advanced proficiency levels, majoring in English Language and Literature
at a private university in Northern Cyprus participated in the
study. The linguistic analyses of the data showed that morphological errors were the most frequent committed,
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followed by syntactic errors. The errors were also analyzed
in the light of their contributory sources and the results
showed that 208 (44.2%) of errors were interlingual, and 263
(55.8%) were developmental and intralingual.
Abushihab’s (2014) study examined 179 grammatical
errors of 20 second year Turkish writing course students’
compositions. The results of the study revealed five categories of errors, that is, the use of the articles (29%), prepositions (28%), morphological (18.4%), tenses (15%), and the
active and the passive voice (9.5%). Through the quantitative
analysis of data, negative influence of the native language
became apparent. Abushihab (2014) concluded that CA
would be a solution for teachers to obtain information about
the similarities and the differences between the L1 and the L2.
Atmaca’s (2016) study investigated the types and the frequency of errors in written paragraphs of 32 Turkish elementary EFL learners in a 4-month study. The design of the study
included interviews about learners’ feelings and feedback
sessions with the teacher and peers for the cause of the errors.
Based on the results, prepositions (N = 63, 23.33%), verbs
(N = 46, 17.03%), and articles (N = 7, 2.59%) were found to
be the most frequent errors, whereas gerund and possessives
(N = 7, 2.59%) were the least frequent errors.
Effects of Audio-Visual Aids in Writing
According to Neeraja (2003) audio-visual is defined as “an
instructional device in which the message can be heard as
well as seen” (p. 206). Audio-visuals presented in prewriting
classes have a positive effect on students’ achievement
(Al-Khayyat, 2016). They can work as a good aid to improve
the writing quality of second language learners and can also
motivate them toward learning and writing in the second language (Shams et al., 2016). The effectiveness of audio visual
media was also made evident in the study of Aflina (2017)
who carried out research with an examination that showed
significant improvement of the writing skill, critical thinking, and better thinking ability. Using audio-visual aids in
writing tasks are useful, reinforce positive behavior and
engage students in the task making them active in the learning process (Kholis, 2016).
Methodology
This section addresses the research design, procedures, participants, the data collection instrument, and data analysis.
Research Procedures and Design
A quasi-experimental design with a quantitative approach was
carried out at a public vocational high school in North Cyprus.
A quasi-experimental research design was employed to carry
out the study. In quasi-experimental designs, the samples are
not randomly assigned (Cook & Campbell, 1979). The study
involved a non-randomized control group and an experimental
group. According to Creswell (2012), experimental methods
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assist in explaining the cause and the effect relationship. So,
experimental design was adopted in the present study because
it could describe the effect of audio-visual aids on the written
errors of the EFL learners.
The study took place at a public vocational high school
which only accepted students with 5.00 Cumulative Grade
Points Average (CGPA). This CGPA was a determinate to
form the two groups, namely, experimental and control. It is
notable that the two classes were instructed with the same
teacher: one of the researchers.
The public vocational high school was built in 1990 in
Haspolat, Nicosia, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Turkish and Turkish Cypriot students formed the population
at school. There are four grades, that is, 9th, 10th, 11th, and
12th at school. The 11th and the 12th grade students receive
lessons of either English for Information and Communication
Technology or English for Electrical and Electronics twice a
week in addition to the general English lessons. Teachers
encourage learners to get in contact with the English language beyond English lessons at school. Tenth grade students follow the Solutions pre-intermediate as their
course-book which is at Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEFR) A2-B1 level (Falla &
Davies, 2008). The curriculum provides students with opportunities to improve their language skills, content learning,
and cognitive abilities from language in context. Students are
required to prepare portfolios individually or in small groups.
So, they can synthesize facts and ideas from different sources
of information to present their brochures, written reports,
posters, presentations, and projects.
The current English syllabus enables learners to make an
active use of English in class through content language integrated learning (Department of Educational Planning and
Program Development, 2005). Learners can increase their
academic proficiency in English by being self-autonomous
and cooperative. Materials empower students to skim and
scan texts to understand relevant information in written texts,
paraphrase, do class surveys, listen to different extracts, discuss, and write their biographies and messages. Broadly
speaking, authentic texts reflect the real life language use,
provide a model of the different language structures, and
enrich learners’ vocabulary. Authentic texts and video clips
can also be used to lead to other language activities such as
projects, discussions, and role-plays. It is possible to focus
on the form and the meaning of the contents for interaction
with the TL. In addition, learners develop their real-world
language skills as they are engaged with the topical, up-todate, and cultural materials since the challenging element of
the lexical and grammatical structures in realia offer an
insight into the target culture.
Students were observed to have committed written errors.
These errors were detected and noted, and it was made evident
that the students were not making mistakes (self-correction
could be employed) but rather errors because they were unable
to self-correct (their level was pre-intermediate). In addition,
they were consistent, that is, “if learners consistently use a
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Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
deviant form for a correct TL form an error has occurred, but
if the deviant forms are random they are mistakes” (Kashavarz,
2015, p. 49) and finally because of the frequency of occurrence. They had a high frequency and were systematic. If they
were mistakes then they would be haphazard.
The participants of the study wrote at least 14 sentences
on a worksheet where the sentences were numbered. A
checklist (See Appendix Tables A1 and A2) was used in
order to record the types and the frequency of errors committed in the sentences. Thus, all the sentences were collected
through the following steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The experimental group (class A) was required to listen and watch a 9-min video clip of the story of the
Little Red Riding Hood only once. The control group
(class B) did not watch the video clip.
Both groups were asked to write 14 sentences about
the story on a worksheet within a time limit of 30
min.
All the sentences were corrected and analyzed by two
experienced English Language teachers.
Errors were coded with a list of 11 symbols, that is, A
(article), P (preposition), WO (word order), VT (verb
tense), PL (plural –s), Pos. (possessive –s), Comp.
Adj. (comparative adjectives), Sp. (spelling), Punc.
(punctuation), Cap. (capitalization), and WW (wrong
word).
A checklist was prepared to identify the types and the
frequencies to categorize the common errors.
Participants’ worksheets were distributed back to
them, and they were trained to self-correct their
errors according to the coding as a remedial language
practice.
Experimental group. Twenty-nine EFL students in the experimental group were asked to listen and watch an audio-visual
aid of the story of “ Little Red Riding Hood.” Audio-visual
aids were employed because they were seen to motivate and
have a positive effect on students’ writing performances
(Aflina, 2017; Al-Khayyat, 2016; Kholis, 2016). It was
hypothesized that students’ errors will diminish with the help
of the audio-visual. Following this, the students wrote 14
sentences individually as much as they could remember from
the prompt in 30 min.
Control group. Twenty-nine EFL students in the control group
were asked to write at least 14 sentences to describe the same
story (Little Red Riding Hood). The learners wrote their sentences individually within a time limit of 30 min.
Participants and Sampling
This study employed convenience sampling. Ary et al. (2010)
highlight that convenience sampling is convenient and economical and can be selected by the researcher who has easy
access to the sample. Therefore, convenience sampling was
used in this study because the researcher was interested in
doing an action research by using the students in the classes
that were available at the time of the study. Action research is
a systematic inquiry which involves the spiral design cycles
of planning, action, observation, and reflection (Burns,
2010). It helps teachers focus on the classroom dynamics and
improve their instruction and learning.
The sample of the study consisted of 58, 10th grade
English language students at a public vocational high school
in North Cyprus. The sample size was divided into two, 29
students in each group. The students had been studying
English for 8 years. All the participants were 16 to 17 years
of age and were Turkish Cypriot in origin. The tenth grade
learners were chosen for the study because they had background knowledge and experience in learning English for
several years. English was a compulsory subject and the participants were obliged to take 4 hr of English instruction a
week. Each class hour lasted 40 min, 160 min in total a week.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data for the research were obtained through 58, 10th grade
Turkish Cypriot EFL students’ written sentences. Data collection from both groups of participants took place on the
same day at the same hour. Corder’s (1982) EA method was
employed to identify and categorize the errors in this study.
First, written samples of learners’ language were collected.
Second, errors were identified and labeled according to
Kashavarz’s (2015) comprehensible taxonomy. Third, errors
were described and classified into four main categories.
Finally, the causes of errors were evaluated and explained.
After the data were collected, sample-based classification
was employed to assign the errors into appropriate taxonomies. Wrong use of articles, prepositions, and word order
were listed under the syntactic category. Verb tense, omission of plural –s, misuse of possessive –s, and incorrect use
of comparative adjectives were collected under the morphological category. The orthographic category consisted of
incorrect spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors. The
last type of error was the use of wrong words in the lexical
category, were classified by the researcher. After the written
errors were recorded and analyzed, a table of checklist for
errors was formed for each group of participants.
The data were first analyzed using the Statistical Package
of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. To show whether
there was a significant difference between the errors committed by the two groups (experimental and control) a
paired samples t-test was employed. Data were presented
using mean scores and standard deviations. In addition,
descriptive statistical analysis was employed to reveal the
frequency, the percentage and the rank of each error. Each
sentence was analyzed and labeled for the frequency, the
percentage and the rank of each type of error. Four main
categories were formed according to the frequency of
errors produced by the participants, that is, syntactic, morphological, orthographic, and lexical. The frequency and
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the percentage distribution of errors were calculated and
the most frequently committed errors were determined for
each group of learners. Ranking of the errors determined
the frequency of the errors in each category. Data were analyzed according to the following procedures:
1.
2.
3.
Participants’ written sentences were collected and
analyzed according to 11 types of errors: wrong use
of articles, wrong use of prepositions, word order,
verb tense, omission of plural –s, misuse of the possessive –s, incorrect use of comparative adjectives,
incorrect spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and
wrong words.
Each occurrence of the error was marked with an
asterisk and coded to indicate the place of an error.
The percentage of errors was calculated and tabulated using the following formula:
Total errors of the experimental or the control
group for each sub-category
×100
Total errors of the experimental or the
control group
4.
5.
Sample common errors from the experimental and
the control group were investigated in detail.
The sources of errors were explored and explanations
were presented for both groups of participants.
Reliability. Two English language teachers who know Turkish and English fluently detected the errors committed in the
written sentences produced by the students. Cohen’s Kappa
inter-rater reliability was employed to check whether the
errors committed were “errors.” Cohen’s Kappa statistics is
used to measure inter-rater reliability of two raters. The
Kappa statistic varies from 0 to 1 where 0 is minor disagreement and 1 is perfect agreement (McHugh, 2012). The interrater reliability (IRR) score was 0.833333 which made it
evident that there was a strong relationship with detection of
errors of both raters.
Ethical Considerations
Before carrying out the study an ethical approval form was
filled in and sent via email for ethical clearance to the
Graduate School of Educational Sciences of the Near East
University in North Cyprus. Permission from the institute
was received before starting the experiment. Written consent
was granted from the Ministry of National Education,
Vocational Education Department before carrying out the
study. In addition, oral consent was received from the participants before the study. The participants were assured that
their privacy would be kept anonymous and their personal
data were strictly kept confidential.
Findings and Discussion
This section will present the results of the types of errors
from the two classes (experimental and Control) in relation
to the total number of errors in each category. Then, the most
and the least common errors in the two classes will be
described. Finally, sample sentences will exemplify the
causes of the most common errors.
Most and Least Errors Committed
A total of 812 sentences were collected. The total number of
correct sentences was 260 (32.02%) whereas the total number
of incorrect sentences was 552 (67.98%) in the two classes. As
can be seen in Tables A1 and A2, the experimental group committed 232 errors and the control group committed 320 errors.
This indicates that the experimental group who wrote sentences after watching the audio-visual aid produced better
written work as compared to the control group who did not
watch the visual regarding the story “Little Red Riding Hood.”
To be able to reveal whether there was a significant difference between the groups a paired samples t-test was
employed. Table 1 presents the differences between the
experimental and control groups’ occurrences of errors.
As presented in Table 1, the significant 2 tail (0.057) has
revealed that there is a difference between the two groups.
That is to say that, the two groups differ significantly because
0.057 is higher than 0.050, In other words, it was revealed
that the experimental group committed less errors as compared to the control group.
Forty-six sample sentences will accompany the most frequent types of errors and their causes. Table A1 illustrates the
errors produced by the experimental group (class A). The
syntactic errors with a total number of 133 (57.33%) outperformed the morphological 72 (31.04%), orthographic 24
(10.35%), and lexical 3 (1.28%) errors produced. These
results correspond with Zheng’s and Park’s (2013) study that
suggests that syntactic and morphological errors were the
most frequently found in Chinese and Korean learners.
However, this was dissimilar to the study carried out by
Bostancı (2019) in the same context (North Cyprus) who
revealed that the EFL university students’ morphological
errors outperformed the syntactic errors.
Table A2 presents the detailed distribution of the most frequent errors of the control group. As illustrated, the syntactic
errors 175 (54.69%) surpassed the morphological 103
(32.19%), orthographical 37 (11.57%), and lexical 5 (1.55%)
errors. The control group learners produced 27 (8.44%)
errors in the omission of plural –s, and 25 (7.81%) errors in
the misuse of the possessive –s. Learners committed a total of
37 (11.57%) errors in the orthographic category, 16 (5%)
errors in incorrect spelling, 14 (4.38%) errors in punctuation,
and 7 (2.19%) errors in capitalization. Only five errors
(1.55%) were produced in the lexical category.
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Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
Table 1. Differences Between the Experimental and Control Groups.
Differences
95% confidence interval of
the difference
Groups
Experimental—Control
M
SD
S Error M
Lower
Upper
t
df
Sig.
(two-tailed)
–14.66667
23.93299
6.90886
–29.87296
0.53963
–2.123
11
.057
Note. M = mean score.
Figure 1. Analysis of the frequency of errors.
Difference of Errors
As it could be seen from Figure 1, the top three frequent
errors of the experimental group occur in the syntactic category with 64 (27.59%) errors in the wrong use of articles, 40
(17.24%) errors in the wrong use of prepositions, and 29
(12.5%) errors in word order. The experimental group made
27 (11.64%) errors in the verb tense, 16 (6.9%) errors in the
omission of plural -s, 15 (6.47%) errors in the misuse of possessive –s, and 14 (6.03%) errors in the incorrect use of the
comparative adjectives. The participants committed a total
of 24 (10.35%) errors in the orthographic category. Only
three errors (1.28%) occurred in the lexical category. Figures
1 and 2 reveal that the control group made more errors in
each category than the experimental group. So, there is a significant difference in the errors produced by both groups. To
exemplify, the control group learners produced more errors
(N = 87, 27.19%) in the wrong use of articles than the experimental group (N = 64, 27.59%). According to Figures 1 and
2, 6.9% (N = 16) of the errors in the experimental group
were due to the omission of plural –s, whereas 8.44% (N =
27) of errors were due to the same category in the control
group. In all, 6.47% (N = 15) and 6.03% (N = 14) of errors
in the experimental group were caused by the misuse of possessive –s and the incorrect use of comparative adjectives,
respectively. In contrast, 7.81% (N = 25) and 5.94% (N =
19) of the errors in the control group were related to the misuse of possessive –s and the incorrect use of the comparative
adjectives.
Table A3 reveals 87 (27.19%) of the most prevalent syntactic errors of the control group in the wrong use of articles
with a distribution of 50 (57.47%) errors in the omission of
the article, 22 (25.29%) errors in addition of the article, and
8
15 (17.24%) in the misuse of the article. On the other hand,
the experimental group produced 64 (27.59%) article errors
with 41 (64.06%) in the omission of the article, 14 (21.88%)
in the addition of the article, and 9 (14.06%) in the misuse of
the article. Furthermore, Table A4 shows the distribution of
the preposition errors of the control group with a total of 56
(17.5%) errors and the experimental group with a total of 40
(17.24%) errors.
The results of this study found similar results with those
of Taher’s (2011) study. Table A5 indicates the distribution
of the tense errors of the control group with a total errors of
32 (10%), 15 (46.87%) errors in the use of simple past
instead of past participle, 10 (31.25%) errors in past continuous instead of past simple, and 7 (21.88%) errors in
present perfect instead of past perfect. In contrast, there is a
slight difference in terms of the distribution of the tense
errors for the experimental group with 12 (44.44%) errors in
using simple past instead of past participle, 8 (29.63%)
errors in past continuous instead of past simple, and 7
(25.93%) in present perfect instead of past perfect. Taher
(2011) examined the differences regarding the types and the
frequencies of errors of two groups of ninth grade Swedish
learners’ essays, that is, free written production and controlled written production. The learners in the controlled
written production group were instructed with form-focused
grammar teaching, whereas the learners in the free written
production group did not receive any grammar instruction.
Taher (2011) categorized the errors in three categories, that
is, verb tense, verb inflection, and subject verb agreement.
Likewise, the result of the study showed that both groups
made the same types of errors and the causes of errors were
due to L1 interference and insufficient grammatical knowledge. However, students who were in the free written production group produced more prepositional errors (19%)
than the controlled written group (9%).
Although both groups produced the same types of errors
in 11 categories, the experimental group produced less number of errors in each category than the control group. Thus,
the provision of the audio-visual aid acted as an input for the
experimental group and helped them remember vocabulary
by listening and producing more grammatically correct sentences than the control group.
The Sources of Errors
This section will present six categories of intralingual errors
with 12 sentences from the corpora. Then, the frequency and
the percentage of the interlingual and intralingual errors of
the experimental and the control group will be discussed.
Main causes of errors. The findings of the study by Singh
et al. (2017) show that the causes of most errors were due to
overgeneralization of rules. The results were congruent with
this study. Table A6 illustrates that the control group produced more intralingual errors (N = 198, 61.87%) than interlingual errors (N = 122, 38.13%). Similarly, the experimental
SAGE Open
group committed more intralingual errors (N = 150, 64.65%)
than interlingual errors (N = 82, 35.35%). This finding is
also not in line with the findings of Bostancı (2019) who also
analyzed errors in the light of their contributory sources, and
revealed that 208 (44.2%) of the errors committed by the
EFL university students were interlingual, and 263 (55.8%)
were developmental and intralingual.
In addition, Table A7 reveals the most frequent subcategory of intralingual transfer, overgeneralization, for the
experimental group (N = 59, 39.33%) and the control group
(N = 70, 35.35%). The least frequent intralingual subcategory for the experimental group occurred at false analogy (N = 12, 8%) and the control group produced 23
intralingual errors (11.61%) for the same sub-category.
1.
Overgeneralization: Both groups of learners generalized the rule of adding past tense –ed form to all
verbs:
Experimental Group (EG): Her granny haved* big eyes,
big ears and a big mouth.
(Her granny had big eyes, big ears and a big mouth.)
Control Group (CG): The wolf runed* to the grandmother’s house.
(The wolf ran to the grandmother’s house.)
2.
Ignorance of rule restriction: The sentences produced
below show that both groups were not aware of the
rule restriction with the comparative adjectives and
subject-verb inversion in exclamation sentences.
EG: All the best* to see you with! (All the better to see
you with!)
CG: What big eyes have you*! (What big eyes you have!)
3.
False Analogy: The learners knew the expression to
look for and to fall asleep but rather misused the
prepositions with the wrong verbs.
EG: She went into the woods to see* for flowers.
(She went into the wood to look for flowers.)
CG: The wolf went* asleep. (The wolf fell asleep.)
4.
Hyperextension: The learners overextended the use
of adding –ly to all the adjectives to make them
adverbs.
EG: The wolf ran fastly*. (The wolf ran fast.)
CG: The red cap suited her very goodly*. (The red cap
suited her very well.)
5.
Hypercorrection: Here, the experimental group
learner attempted to use the expression fire at but
produced does instead of was going to. Similarly, the
control group learner failed to produce to be form
with the word, delighted and used has instead.
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
9
Figure 2. Analysis of the percentage of errors.
EG: The woodsman does* going to fire at the wolf.
(The woodsman was going to fire at the wolf.)
CG: Her mother has* delighted with the good news.
(Her mother was delighted with the good news.)
6.
Faulty Categorization: The learners in the experimental group failed to add the infinitive to while producing a sentence in the Reported Speech. The
control group made wrong classification of the verbs
that are followed by the infinitive to. So, they misused gerund –ing after the verb to be surprised.
EG: Her mother told her* set out before it got dark.
(Her mother told her to set out before it got dark).
CG: She was surprised finding* the cottage door open.
(She was surprised to find the cottage door open).
The results about the causes of errors of this study contradict with those of Sawalmeh’s (2013) case study which concluded that mother tongue interference was the only source of
verb tense, article and preposition errors of Arabic students in
Saudi Arabia. Figures 3 and 4 show the frequency and the
percentage of interlingual and intralingual errors for each category produced in the sentences of the experimental group.
The total number for interlingual errors was 82 (35.35%),
whereas the total number for the intralingual errors was 150
(64.65%). The highest percentage of both interlingual and
intralingual errors belongs to the wrong use of articles 24
(29.27%) and 40 (26.66%) for the experimental group,
respectively. Moreover, 19 (23.17%) word order errors for
the experimental group were caused by interlingual transfer,
whereas 10 (6.67%) errors were detected as a result of intralingual transfer. Interestingly, no punctuation and capitalization errors in terms of interlingual transfer were produced by
the experimental group, whereas 7 (4.68%) and 5 (3.33%)
errors of the same group were due to intralingual transfer.
Figures 5 and 6 reveal the frequency and the percentage of
interlingual and intralingual errors for each category produced in the sentences of the control group. About 37 errors
in the wrong use of articles formed the highest percentage of
30.33% of the total number of 122 (38.13%) interlingual
errors. However, 50 (25.25%) errors about the wrong use of
articles were detected with the highest percentage of the total
number of 198 (61.87%) intralingual errors. Like the experimental group, word order errors of 23 (18.85%) were caused
by interlingual transfer, whereas only 9 (4.55%) errors were
due to intralingual transfer in the sentences produced by the
control group. It could be deduced from Figures 3 and 5 that,
experimental and control group of Turkish Cypriot learners
commit errors because of intralingual transfer except in the
case of word order which was caused by the mother tongue
interference.
Based on the findings of the current study, the causes of
errors were mainly interlingual and intralingual transfer. It
10
Figure 3. Frequency of the sources of errors in the experimental group.
Figure 4. Percentage of the sources of errors in the experimental group.
SAGE Open
11
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
Figure 5. Frequency of the sources of errors in the control group.
Figure 6. Percentage of the sources of errors in the control group.
was also found that intralingual errors for the experimental
group (N = 150, 64.65%) and the control group (N = 198,
61.87%) were more frequent than interlingual errors of the
experimental group (N = 82, 35.35%) and the control group
(N = 122, 38.13%). The findings about the causes of errors
of this study were contrary to some of the research results of
the studies which were investigated (Abushihab, 2014;
Kirkgoz, 2010).
Articles
The findings of Atmaca (2016) show that articles and prepositions were the most frequently occurring type of errors.
Thus, this study obtained similar results. Figures 7 and 8
reveal the distribution of the most frequent type of errors,
omission of the articles, for the experimental group (N = 41,
64.06%) and the control group (N = 50, 57.47%). The
12
SAGE Open
Figure 7. The distribution of article errors in the experimental group.
Figure 8. The distribution of article errors in the control group.
following sentences will illustrate the sentences produced
by the two groups of learners. The location of the error in
each sentence from the corpora is indicated with an
asterisk:
Experimental Group (EG) Omission of the definite article: *Little girl put on her red cloak. (The little girl put on
her red cloak.)
Control Group (CG) Omission of the definite article: She
was in* middle of* forest. (She was in the middle of the
forest.)
EG Omission of the definite and the indefinite article:
*Woodsman was chopping *log.
(A woodsman was chopping the log.)
CG Omission of the indefinite article: She lived in *old
house. (She lived in an old house.)
The omission of the definite article in two sentences could
be attributed to the L1 interference because such system of
articles does not exist in Turkish. It is difficult for Turkish
Cypriot learners to use the article because there is no such
article system in their L1.
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
Figure 9. The distribution of preposition errors in the
experimental group.
The sentences below indicate that Turkish learners may
have overgeneralized the use of the indefinite article before
all nouns. Both groups produced those intralingual errors
because of their wrong hypothesis about the indefinite
article.
EG Addition of the indefinite article: He had a* big eyes.
(He had big eyes.)
CG Addition of the indefinite article: She saw a* colorful
butterflies.
(She saw colorful butterflies.)
Both groups of learners’ lack of attention could cause
such addition of the indefinite article with plural nouns.
Here, learners’ created an ill-formed structure based on their
learning experience with the overgeneralization of using the
indefinite article before a noun in the TL.
Misuse of the articles in the sentences below was due to
the negative L1 transfer since learners do not add any articles
in their L1.
EG Misuse of the definite article: She wore the* red cloak.
(She wore a red cloak.)
CG Misuse of the definite article: Luckily, the* woodsman
heard her. (Luckily, a woodsman heard her.)
Prepositions
Figures 9 and 10 indicate that the second most prevalent category of errors was seen in the subcategory of prepositions
for the two groups of participants. In all, 37.5% (N = 21) of
the errors in the control group were due to the misuse of prepositions, whereas 57.5% (N = 23) of the errors in the treatment group were related to the same category. The second
13
Figure 10. The distribution of preposition errors in the control
group.
type of error was caused by the omission of prepositions. In
all, 25% (N = 10) of the errors in the experimental group and
33.93% (N = 19) of the errors in the control group were
because of those type of errors. A total of 17.5% (N = 7) of
errors in the experimental group were as a result of the addition of prepositions. In contrast, 28.57% (N = 16) of the
errors were attributed to the addition of prepositions in the
control group. The following samples of sentences were produced by the two groups:
EG Misuse of a preposition: She was at* her way to see
her grandmother.
(She was on her way to see her grandmother.)
CG Misuse of a preposition: He grabbed the wolf and
made him spit down* the grandmother. (He grabbed the
wolf and made him spit out the grandmother.)
The two sentences above show that learners had a wrong
choice of prepositions. The experimental group had difficulty
in using prepositions because “in, on, at” are used interchangeably without any difference in their L1. So, the reason for this
type of error was due to the negative L1 transfer. The improper
use of “down” in the sentence of the control group was due to
the partial learning of phrasal verbs and learners’ wrong
hypothesis about prepositions. Therefore, 9 preposition errors
(10.97%) of the experimental group and 20 errors of the control group (16.39%) were due to interlingual transfer.
EG Omission of a preposition: Her mother said: Go
straight* your grandmother’s cottage. (Go straight to
your grandmother’s cottage.)
CG Omission of a preposition: He turned* him. (He
turned him upside down.)
14
SAGE Open
Figure 11. The distribution of tense errors in two classes.
Interlingual errors in the sentences above illustrate the
difficulty of using prepositions for the Turkish learners
because prepositions in Turkish are added to the words
instead of being used separately.
EG Addition of a preposition: The wolf asked to* the girl.
(The wolf asked the girl.)
CG Addition of a preposition: She entered in* the cottage.
(She entered the cottage.)
Both groups of learners overused prepositions in those
sentences and errors were due to the incomplete application
of rules by adding unnecessary prepositions.
Word Order
EG Incorrect word order: They in the garden *sat. (They
sat in the garden.)
CG Incorrect word order: The wolf the grandmother’s
wardrobe looked*.
(The wolf looked in the grandmother’s wardrobe.)
In Turkish, the verb is usually at the end of the sentence.
So, interference of the mother tongue is obvious in the incorrect order of the words in both groups of learners’
sentences.
Verb Tense
The findings of the verbs tense errors were similar to
Abushihab’s (2014) study. Figure 11 shows the percentages
for the morphological category of errors committed by the
experimental group and the control group. The total number
of tense errors for the experimental group was 27 (11.64%).
On the other hand, the control group had a total of 32 (10%)
errors. In addition, the experimental group produced more
verb tense errors (N = 20, 13.33%) which were caused by
intralingual transfer than the control group (N = 18, 9.10%)
EG Simple Past instead of Past Participle: When the Little
Red Riding Hood knocked on the door, the wolf already
ate* her grandmother. (When the Little Red Riding Hood
knocked on the door, the wolf had already eaten her
grandmother.)
CG Simple Past instead of Past Participle: After her
mother baked* some cupcakes, she put them in a basket.
(After her mother had baked some cupcakes, she put
them in a basket.)
Learners substituted the Past Simple instead of the Past
Participle because in Turkish, Past Simple and Past Participle
can be used interchangeably with the time adverb “after.”
15
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
The sentences were result of interlingual errors. The control
group committed more verb tense errors (N = 14, 11.47%)
which were due to interlingual transfer than the experimental
group (N = 7, 8.54%).
EG Past Continuous instead of Past Simple: She was stopping* to pick some flowers.
(She stopped to pick some flowers.)
CG Past Continuous instead of Past Simple: The little girl
was understanding* that it wasn’t her granny. (The little
girl understood that it wasn’t her granny.)
Possessive –s
The sentences produced by both groups above include
intralingual and developmental errors. Turkish learners had a
poor mastery over the use of state verbs that are not used
with the Past Continuous tense.
Comparative Adjectives
EG Present Perfect instead of Past Perfect: When she was
in the forest, she has* noticed some beautiful flowers.
(When she was in the forest, she had noticed some beautiful flowers.)
EG Present Perfect instead of Past Perfect: When he has*
heard her, he ran quickly to her cottage. (When he had
heard her, he ran quickly to her cottage.)
There is no present perfect tense in Turkish, as compared
to English. So, learners were confused about the use of present perfect and past perfect. Therefore, interlanguage errors
can be observed in the redundant use of the present perfect
tense.
The study analyzed a total of 812 written sentences of
Turkish Cypriot EFL learners in two classrooms. It could be
said that the results of this study show that top frequent errors
are consistent with the previous studies regarding Turkish
learners’ errors (Abushihab, 2014; Atmaca, 2016; Kirkgoz,
2010). The top four frequent errors were identified as articles, prepositions, word order, and verb tense out of 11 main
categories of errors.
Plural –s
The following sentences were produced by the two groups:
EG Omission of plural –s: On the way, the little girl ate
two big cupcake*.
(On the way, the little girl ate two big cupcakes.)
CG Omission of plural –s: Her mother said: Don’t talk to
stranger*!
(Her mother said: Don’t talk to strangers.)
The errors of both groups were due to lack of plural –s
because pluralization of nouns after numbers can-not be used
in Turkish. In other words, a singular noun is always formed
after numbers in Turkish. So, interlingual errors occurred
when the learners transferred the Turkish rules into the TL.
The control group produced more possessive –s errors that
were caused by intralingual transfer (N = 20, 10.10%) than
the experimental group (N = 9, 6%). The following sentences were caused by the misuse of the possessive –s:
EG: It’s* voice sounded odd. (Its voice sounded odd.)
CG: It’s* teeth were very sharp. (Its teeth were very
sharp.)
Both groups of learners made generalizations about the
incorrect use of the comparative adjectives as shown below:
EG: The flowers in the woods were *beautiful than flowers in her garden.
(The flowers in the woods were more beautiful than the
flowers in her garden.)
CG: The wolf’s ears were more* longer than the
grandmother’s.
(The wolf’s ears were longer than the grandmother’s.)
Orthographic Errors
The following examples illustrate the orthographic errors
which were produced as a result of lack of attention in forming sentences such as:
EG Incorrect spelling: She watced* the colorful
buterflyes*.
(She watched the colorful butterflies.)
CG Incorrect spelling: They said* in the garden. (They
sat in the garden.)
EG Omission of a coma and a period (punctuation):
Whenever she went out* she wore a red cloak* (Whenever
she went out, she wore a red cloak.)
CG Punctuation: A few minutes later* she knocked on the
door* (A few minutes later, she knocked on the door.)
EG Capitalization: *suddenly, a wolf appeared beside
her. (Suddenly, a wolf appeared beside her.)
CG Capitalization: *once upon a time there was a little
girl. (Once upon a time, there was a little girl).
Wrong Word
The lexical category consisted of the wrong word in the following examples:
EG: He had a big mouth with two sharp tooth*. (He had a
big mouth with two sharp teeth.)
CG: The wolf closed* the lamp and slept on granny’s bed.
(The wolf turned off the lamp and slept on granny’s bed.)
16
The experimental group of learners’ L1 interfered with
the plural nouns in the TL. When there are two words in the
L2, learners struggle to choose the correct word because
there is only one word representing the meaning in the L1.
So, the control group made a cross association of the phrasal
verb; turned off, with their L1 word, that is, closed which
caused negative language transfer. So, the causes of the
wrong word errors were due to only interlingual transfer for
both the control group (N = 5, 4.10%) and the experimental
group (N = 3, 3.65%).
Implications of the Findings
on Language Learning
The findings of the study indicate the most frequent errors of
the two groups of participants (experimental and control
groups) that occurred in the syntactic, morphological, orthographic, and lexical categories. The experimental group produced a total of 232 (57.14%) errors, whereas the control
group committed 320 (78.82%) errors. The less number of
errors for the experimental group can be attributed to the
audio-visual prompt which helped learners recount the story
of the Little Red Riding Hood. This finding highlights the
potential effects of audio-visual aids on students’ errors.
Students’ errors are lessened with the help of an audio-visual
before a writing task. Therefore, EFL teachers should engage
their students to watch related audio-visual aids as a prewriting task.
The most frequent errors for both groups of participants
fall into the category of wrong use of articles. There is no
equivalent for the definite article in Turkish. It is also not
necessary to use an indefinite article before a countable noun
in Turkish. Thus, some of the errors (N = 24, 29.27%) about
the articles for the experimental group and the control group
(N = 37, 30.33%) were due to mother tongue interference
(interlingual errors). In contrast, most of the wrong use of
articles were due to the intralingual transfer for the experimental group (N = 40, 26.66%) and the control group (N =
50, 25.25%). Furthermore, Turkish Cypriot learners have
difficulty in using prepositions such as in, on, and at because
there is no distinguishing difference between these prepositions in Turkish. Interlingual interference was obvious when
learners rely on their first language to translate sentences into
the L2. So, CA could be presented to learners since interlingual transfer might inhibit them produce sentences in the
correct word order.
The verb tense errors for both groups indicate the poor
mastery over tenses. Moreover, the majority of errors were
due to the lack of tense equivalents in Turkish. For instance,
there is no present perfect suffix in Turkish. The main cause
of verb tense errors could be explained by the incomplete
knowledge about the L2. Above all, carelessness can be a
cause for the mechanical errors, that is, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
The writing skill needs to be perceived as a process and
sufficient attention needs to be paid to using writing for
SAGE Open
communicative language purposes (Pawlak, 2014). Coding
the errors facilitated self-correction in both classes. Thus,
students can be trained to interpret the coding to experiment
written corrective feedback and prevent the fossilization of
errors. Furthermore, students can also learn from their errors
when they study coding of the errors. One shortcoming of
EA is that teachers may ignore the developmental process of
learners by focusing on the common errors. On the other
hand, making teachers aware of the common types of errors
that Turkish Cypriot learners commit will assist teachers in
designing their curriculum and teaching materials effectively
on the areas of difficulty. In addition, learners need to be
exposed to reading and writing in English as much as possible beyond the classroom. Harmer (2007) emphasizes that
learners need to be provided with a stimulus to engage them
in creativity and imagination of the writing process.
In speaking, non-verbal clues, that is, gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions may help learners to get their
meaning across. In contrast, learners are not able to use those
paralinguistic features in writing (Harmer, 2007). Therefore,
it is vital to categorize and diagnose the common errors to
improve learners’ written accuracy. Another important difference is that when learners speak, they do not have enough
time to return and correct their incorrect utterance. However,
learners have more time to reconstruct their incorrect sentences in writing than in speech. Thus, learners need to be
encouraged to rewrite by reading through their drafts to
reduce the number of errors in their sentences.
Furthermore, by analyzing the frequency of errors, teachers can help learners avoid the errors and create a good piece
of written work. Harmer (2007) advises building the writing
skill as a habit which can be formed in buzz groups, mind
maps, and making notes. Teachers can monitor, collect a
database of the most frequent errors in their classrooms so
that they can track students’ progress. Students can be
encouraged to try and use the Microsoft Word application to
track changes as peer corrective feedback.
Conclusion and Recommendations
As a result, the findings of the present study have shed some
light on the frequency of common types of errors through a
comparison of two classrooms with a quasi-experimental
design. The results of this research prioritized four main
most frequent categories of errors from a total of 552 errors.
The most frequent errors for the experimental group were
found in the syntactic category (N = 133, 57.33%). Similarly,
the control group produced 175 (54.69%) errors in the syntactic category. The second most frequent errors occurred in
the morphological category for the experimental group (N =
72, 31.04%) whereas the control group made 103 (32.19%)
errors. The third most frequent category was attributed to 24
(10.35%) orthographical errors for the experimental group,
whereas 37 (11.57%) errors for the control group. It could be
said that the least frequent error belongs to the lexical category with 3 (1.28%) of the experimental group and 5 (1.55%)
17
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
of the control group. In addition, there is a significant difference in terms of the total number of errors between the
experimental group (N = 232, 57.14%) and the control group
(N = 320, 78.82%). Interlingual and intralingual interference
became apparent in 11 categories of errors. However, most
of the causes of errors of both groups can be attributed to
intralingual transfer which prevented learners to produce
grammatically correct sentences. The mother tongue interference errors were only more frequent in the incorrect word
order sentences produced by the experimental group (N =
19, 23.17%) and the control group (N = 23, 18.85%).
According to the observations, presenting audio-visual
aids motivated learners and helped them improve writing
grammatically correct sentences by acting as a good language model. In addition, more studies need to focus on
exploring and analyzing different proficiencies of learners’
errors to identify the types of common errors and reorient
learning materials for Turkish Cypriot learners to grasp the
structures in English.
The participants in the study were limited to the number
of students in two classes of 10th grade public vocational
high school students in North Cyprus. The learners were
given a time limit of 30 min to produce 14 sentences not
paragraphs. The study was conducted in two CEFR A2-B1
level English classes. Moreover, the results can-not be generalized to other 10th grade English language classes at CEFR
A2-B1 level at any public or private high schools. The study
does not assess the effect of extraneous factors, that is, the
level of anxiety, motivation, and parents’ education on the
overall written sentences in English.
Appendix
Table A1. Experimental Group.
Classification of errors
Syntactic
Morphological
Orthographic
Lexical
Rank
Types of errors
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Wrong use of articles
Wrong use of prepositions
Word order
Verb tense
Omission of plural –s
Misuse of possessive –s
Incorrect use of comparative adjectives
Incorrect spelling
Punctuation
Capitalization
Wrong word
Total
Frequency
64
40
29
27
16
15
14
12
7
5
3
232
Percentage (%)
27.59
17.24
12.5
11.64
6.9
6.47
6.03
5.17
3.02
2.16
1.28
100
Table A2. Control Group.
Classification of errors
Syntactic
Morphological
Orthographic
Lexical
Rank
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Types of errors
Wrong use of articles
Wrong use of prepositions
Word order
Verb tense
Omission of plural –s
Misuse of possessive –s
Incorrect use of comparative
adjectives
Incorrect spelling
Punctuation
Capitalization
Wrong word
Total
Frequency
Percentage (%)
87
56
32
32
27
25
19
27.19
17.5
10
10
8.44
7.81
5.94
16
14
7
5
320
5
4.38
2.19
1.55
100
18
SAGE Open
Table A3. The Distribution of Article Errors in Two Classes.
Types of article errors
Number of errors in the
experimental group
Number of errors in the
control group
41
14
9
64
50
22
15
87
1. Omission of the article
2. Addition of the article
3. Misuse of the article
Total
Percentage of errors in Percentage of errors in the
the experimental group
control group
64.06
21.88
14.06
100
57.47
25.29
17.24
100
Table A4. The Distribution of Preposition Errors in Two Classes.
Types of preposition
errors
Number of errors in the
experimental group
1. Misuse of prepositions
2. Omission of
prepositions
3. Addition of prepositions
Total
Number of errors in the
control group
Percentage of the errors Percentage of errors in the
in experimental group
control group
23
10
21
19
57.5
25
37.5
33.93
7
40
16
56
17.5
100
28.57
100
Table A5. The Distribution of Tense Errors in Two Classes.
Types of tense errors
Number of errors in the
experimental group
1. Simple past instead of
past participle
2. Past continuous instead
of past simple
3. Present perfect instead
of past perfect
Total
Number of errors in the
control group
Percentage of errors in
the experimental group
Percentage of errors in
the control group
12
15
44.44
46.87
8
10
29.63
31.25
7
7
25.93
21.88
27
32
100
100
Table A6. Sources of Errors.
Causes of errors in group
Number of errors in the
experimental group
Number of errors in the
control group
Percentage of errors in
the experimental group
Percentage of errors the
control
82
150
232
122
198
320
35.35
64.65
100
38.13
61.87
100
1. Interlingual
2. Intralingual
Total
Table A7. Intralingual errors.
Types of intralingual errors
1. Overgeneralization
2. Ignorance of rule
restriction
3. False analogy
4. Hyperextension
5. Hypercorrection
6. Faulty categorization
Total
Number of errors in the
experimental group
Number of errors in the Percentage of errors in the Percentage of errors in the
control group
experimental group
control group
59
31
70
46
39.33
20.67
35.35
23.23
12
14
17
17
150
23
20
20
19
198
8
9.34
11.33
11.33
100
11.61
10.10
10.10
9.61
100
Terzioğlu and Bensen Bostanci
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iDs
Yıldız Terzioğlu
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2262-4888
Hanife Bensen Bostanci
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5451-8698
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